The castle bustles with activity, huge and tiny events take place all the time. Only the big ones are really noted, however. The day-to-day inside the guilds, small interactions and first time meetings full of awkward poses are never once glanced upon... But no longer. Here are chronicled the small stories that happened in the background of the activities!

Same general rules apply in that this has as 1 post limit per story.

This is entirely optional, as such, there are no rewards for writing these stories.

No story can take place in parallel with the current turn of quests, they all must happen in the past, relative to the castle at the moment you write.

Make sure to check with Eli or me before you go in and write.

Three way encounters in the pub? Full guild meetings during some downtime? First time you encountered someone? Feel free to write about it if you want to!

"This meeting will now come to order, first thing first lets go over mission briefings for the last two weeks," Mr. Blank sat at the end head of a long table looking at each of the members of the guild. Each one of the people here had pasts that would make the Devil himself blush, but they had all reached the conclusion that they could make the world a better place instead of a worse one.

I hate this. the voice of the other rang out in Mr. Blanks head, the one who lived with him. He wondered sometimes if he was another part of the other, or if he was part of him. Noted

"Well I am sure you have all heard about the tavern murderer, he waited till people got nice and drunk and had to walk home when it shut, after that he cut em up and left them for the guards to find, sick bastard that one" one of the members said with a grin. "Found where he was I did and brought em back here,"

"And where is he now?" Mr. Blank asked with his usual disinterest.

"Well seemed like he was gonna be a wash in court, son of a noble he was, so I brought him here to face judgement as only we can give it to em I did" the man smiled and raised a glass. "Here's to ol Marie, she be having fun with that noble boy tonight she is, heard em squeal the second I shut the door, probaly keep em alive till she gets bored, then off ta hell with his smarmy ass," The guild table shook with laughter and everyone took a drink.

Everyone except Blank that was, he never partook in the merry making that his men where so fond of, he found the pleasure of the screams of the damned sated him enough.

Poor Bastard the other thought. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

He gets what he deserves, those who sin will be punished.

"Any other news?" the others ran through various activities they had done. Mostly information gathering, one or two kills, and the reveal of a guard who had been selling weapons to local gangs and anarchists, he would serve the rest of his short life in a jail cell until the gallows called him. "If that is all then we can move to our next piece of business, because of the high bounty take in these past few weeks the guild treasury is over flowing with money, so I am giving all members a ten percent increase to guild pay, as well as a free meal at the city's greatest restaurant to the winner of last months raffle winner Martin, all expenses paid and a nice carriage to take you and your" Mr. Blank looked at the sheet of paper. "Fiance is it?"

The man named Martin smiled meekly. "Wife sir, had the wedding a few days ago"

"Well good luck to the both of you I suppose, enjoy your free meal, last order of business, Greg we know you have been selling information on the guild to local gangs, you will be punished now" Mr. Blank looked down the table.

Greg looked shocked for a moment. He tried to get away, but before he could leave his seat his chest was filled with arrows. He fell to the floor bleeding and choking on his own blood. "Don't bother cleaning him, give the rats a feast" Mr. Blank stood up and turned walking out of the hall and into an elevator designed to take him out of the base and into the city. "Meeting adjourned"

Mr. Blank closed his eyes and when they opened it was the other that was in control. The one known as Salvantas, the only light in a soul stained with black. How he hated him.

"I hate you, and I hate what I am because of you" Salvantas said under his breath.

And what am I exactly?

"Monster" Salvantas walked into the city to lose himself in the crowds and the noise and forget about the beast inside of him that was only a cut away. He looked at the sky and noticed that it was becoming dark. "I wonder what places will be open right now..." he tried to run through a list in his head when a scream back from an alley cut off by buildings. "Someone in trouble?" he idly thought to himself. He scanned the area for any guard and when he realized there was not one to be found he sighed to himself and turned into the alley.

"Okay lady you are going to give me every gold you have on you, or else me and my friends and going to make your life a lot more difficult then it is now" a group of five men with crude knives surrounded a woman in the back of the alley. She had just stepped out of the kitchen to get some fresh air when the group had surrounded her.

"I don't have any money, please just let me go" she pleaded looking around hopping for a guard to come.

"Ha like we believe you, this is the nicest place in town, if you work here you got money, you don't want to hand it over fine, we take it then" the lead man pulled his arm back and got ready to stab her before a small throwing needle flew between two of his men and embedded itself into the arm. It convulsed and the knife dropped from his hand as his arm shook wildly. "What the hell!" the man cried as he grabbed his arm.

"That nerve causes your entire arm to spasm when hit, thankfully it is rather small, which is why I keep needles along with my basic kunai and other knives, so do any of the others of you want to find out more about your nerves and what happens when they are hit?" Salvantas smiled kindly. "If so I will be your teacher if you want"

The men attacked all at once and Salvantas darted his hands into the trench coat and pulled out two knives. "First of all this nerve shuts down your legs" He dodged the first sloppy cut and quickly stabbed the man in the leg. "This one closes your throat until you can only take in enough air to stay alive, like a knock out point" he quickly stabbed on of them along the side of the neck. "This one just hurts" he ducked as the third man made a wild stab and slammed his fist into the mans groin sending him to the floor.

Salvantas stood as the three men fell. The fourth man looked at him then to his knife. "Run" Salvantas ordered. The man dropped his knife, bowed, and ran away as fast as his legs wold take him.

"T..Thank you sir" the woman said. "C...Can I get you something?"

"Um... do you have any milk, oh and honey, please" Salvantas smiled and the woman laughed and brought him in to the store delivering a swift kick to one of the downed men before getting him a table. The men on the ground would be collected by a group of guards, and when they were let go they would be killed by members of the guild for daring to attack their leader.

(Just a note: This only applies to Aftermath arc and those who wish to participate. If you still want to post other side quests, by all means, do so. This is to provide setting and background for the players to play off of. Even if you didn't participate in the Boss Battle, you can write for this sequence. There is no post order, but do communicate with each other and the GM's in order to keep the timeline from becoming hopelessly entangled. )

The fight with the Kobolds is over! The city is in an uproar over the attack and subsequent defensive measures taken. All those involved are regarded as heroes, and their names are spreading as they all make their way to the cathedral, which has become a makeshift hospital as the city undergoes reconstruction.

The monks that guard the cathedral are kind and decent doctors. Their rudimentary earth magic can slowly heal small wounds, they aren't masters of their craft, however, and are unable to do much more than non-gifted. They offer free food and shelter to those that need it, in exchange for basic necessities or chores to be completed upon recovery.

Kurt was, without a doubt, a horrible patient. Always twitching impatiently, he spent most of the time the monks were patching him up grousing to himself about the whole situation. He had arrived at the cathedral's back entrance half an hour ago, only to find the place turned into a veritable field hospital. However, the monk at the back entrance had immediately let him in upon seeing his cross, and they had secretly bustled him into a back room, removing his holy shroud that was so badly tattered and setting it aside for later repairs and a reestablishment of its old and worn out blessings.

Finally, though, his wounds had been bandaged. His torso was now covered in white fabric, and his right hand hung useless at his side, encased in think wrappings now that the bones had been reset. His white hair, now with the red washed out of it, only partially covered the extra wrappings around his head where he had been bleeding for a while. The monk that had treated him was horrified at his extensive wounds, and even after gratuitous use of holy water, demanded that Kurt stay in bed and rest. However, the former Executor wasn't having any of it.

"...But your wounds will reopen! You need rest!" The man pleaded with Kurt as he finished dressing himself in a black suit near identical to his usual one, making sure to keep the red strip of fabric from his mantle in place on his shoulder as he pulled on the shirt over it. He had not allowed anyone to touch it. He had already taken it off once, and that was risky enough. He would leave it on there for a few more weeks and by then everything should be fine.

"Bah!" Kurt made a noise of disapproval. "As if I could rest with all that noise out there anyhow." He pulled on a long black duster over his new clothes and placed his cross around his neck. "Go and find me some vials!" He commanded grumpily. "The faster all these people heal, the faster they are out of here and the sooner I can get some decent sleep."

So saying, he limped out of the room, muttering complaints to himself. At least in this place separated from everything, the monks would have no way to find out that he wasn't actually an Executor any more...

Normal people are the easiest to manipulate. Too smart and they have an annoying tendency to catch wind of your plans, too dumb and, in the words of a certain pirate, "You can never tell when they are about to do something incredibly...stupid."

There was probably some significance to the proximity between the Cathedral where they were heading, and the Dragon’s Tooth Tavern, but be damned if Tamar had any idea what it was. Probably something to do with the fact that both places were the first port of call in this kind of situation. You were either heading for a place where they had people skilled in healing (or at least ,people who knew how to stop you bleeding everywhere), or you really, really needed a drink. At least, Tamar figured that was how it was supposed to work. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of experience with taverns.

...Or with carrying around injured people, for that matter. The girl -it turned out her name was Eliziya, which was a very pretty name, although Tamar’s brain kept defaulting to calling her “Firefly” out of early formed habit- bore up very bravely considering she’d been electrocuted and scratched to pieces by Kobolds, but she was obviously not enjoying this walk anymore than he was. Being electrocuted? Not fun. Not fun in the slightest, even if you did have a Magical Healer handy to undo some of the worse damage before it became permanent.

He was still thanking whatever gods might exist that Eliziya had fixed his hands.

“Um... are you doing alright?” He asked cautiously.

“Doing alright, as good as can be expected, are you, um...”

“Yeah. Is being electrocuted supposed to feel like this?” Tamar didn’t realise how dumb a question that sounded until after it left his lips. Stupid brain, always running ahead of his tongue.

Eliziya gave him what might have been a confused look if it didn’t crack into a wince of pain. “Supposed to feel like this, it’s not supposed to feel like anything, you’re not -ow - supposed to let it happen.” There was a pause. “I should not have let it happen. I was foolish...”

“Ah, don’t say that, you saved both of our hides.”

“W-with... melted coins?” Eliziya sounded amused.

“Well you can’t deny, it was clever,” Tamar gave her a reassuring squeeze... another mistake there. The last thing Eliziya’s ribs needed was squeezing.

“Ow!” Eliziya started.

“Uh... s-sorry!”

“Sorry, it’s... never mind. Sorry, force of habit.”

Tamar laughed lightly. “I think I’m getting used to it. You still haven’t told me what you were doing out there, though. You don’t have to!” He added quickly at the end. “it’s just... we were both a long way out, huh?”

Eliziya was silent for a moment,, probably not wanting to answer, but talking was clearly a valuable distraction for them both right now. “My sister, I... I was looking for her. She’s still out here, after all those attacks. W-what if...”

“Hey, she’ll be alright,” Tamar wished he could feel as sure of that as he sounded. There were... quite a few people now, all wandering in the direction of the church, many of them obviously bleeding or simply shocked and seeking reassurance. “I mean, look at it this way, she can’t possibly have been any closer to the action than we were, right?”

“Closer to the... action?” Eliziya visibly paused. “Oh dear. I’m afraid you don’t know my sister. Anji is very good at getting close the actio-”

The voice that interrupted came from just ahead of them, sharp and impatient, and Eliziya stiffened upon hearing it. “Alright, we’re here already, you can put me the hell down now, Hector!“

~~~

“Alright, we’re here already, you can put me the hell down now, Hector!“

“You’re gonna hurt yourself, Anj’. You need to stay off your feet.” A large, green haired man warned, carrying her over his shoulder with ease.

...Which was unfortunate for Anji, whose height difference left her feet dangling above the ground due to the tall man carrying her. “I’m hanging two feet off your SHOULDERS, you dumbass. It HURTS. and you’re trying to HELP me?!”

“It’s not my fault you’re this short.” He retorted with a laugh, “Would you prefer me to cradle you like a child?” Hector sarcastically questioned as the two edged closer to the church.

“Sorry, I guess I’m just a little too tall for this to be comfortable. Just let me get you inside, you’ll be fine after that.”

“If I end up with a dislocated arm, you better pray I don’t find you.” Anji threatened in a sarcastic tone. The church doors were opened already, welcoming those who needed aid. Once inside, the two kind of came to a stop as Anji practically yanked on the back of Hector’s head when she saw her sister, who was clearly injured.

“Yeow!” He yelped, loosening his grip.

Anji freed herself from Hector’s hold, landing hard and scraping a knee. Glaring at the taller swordsman, who merely rubbed his head in pain, she stood up and walked towards her sister while grumbling all the way. “ I told you to stay at the Inn, Zi, I was handling stuff perfectly fine!”

“Perfectly fine, that does not look perfectly fine!” Zi jabbed a finger (which was probably shaking a little more than she meant it to) at her sister’s face.

For a moment, Hector looked over at the three, making brief eye contact with Anji once again during her little argument. He merely gave her a respectful nod of his head, as thanks for the help in the fight, and continued into the church to have his wounds mended.

With an annoyed sigh she returned the gesture before bringing her attention back to her sister. “It’ll be fine. You didn't have to go runnin’ out in the rain,” Anji complained. Her eyes fell on the boy who, until this point, had sat stock still on the edge of a casket, hands clenched in his lap, covered in blood but not, Anji couldn’t help noticing, too obviously wounded. “And you, with the ‘ands on my sista’. Wot do you think you’re doing?”

“Uh... uh...” Tamar stammered, but Eliziya interrupted before he could form anything more coherent.

“Out in the rain, leaving you alone? You promised you’d be back but it got so late...” Eliziya’s voice began to stumble and slow.

“I always come back. You know that.” Anji said with a glare, limping over to her sister. “Are you okay?”

“O...kay.” She murmured with all the energy of one entirely drained, her speech clearly slurred. “Yeah.”

“Zi? Come on, let’s get you to the cathedral.” Glancing at Tamar, Anji motioned for him to help get Zi inside, “After you...’swordsman’.” There was a hint of mockery in her voice as she gestured to the young boy.

“Swordsman.. no.. I’m al-alright..” So saying, she fell backwards limply. It was a good thing then, that Tamar was right behind her.

With a scowl, Anji walked into the church, leaving Tamar and Zi alone.

The silence went on a few seconds too long. “Well,” Tamar said eventually. “That... that was your sister, huh?”

“Sister yes, um... that’s her.”

“Oh...” Another pause., before Tamar added “You... don't look very much like her.”

“Like her...?”

“Um... I mean.” Okay it was pretty obvious actually, the two girls looked absolutely nothing like each other, and tamar’s relationship with his own... sister had been such that he really couldn’t draw a comparison here. “I would never have guessed, is all.”

“Have guessed, no, nobody ever does. Um... can we please move?”

Tamar jumped. “R-right! Um... sorry. Moving now.”

“Jie? Jie, why’re you..” Zi paused as Anji stomped away, a stormy expression flashing across her face. “You’re uh.. I..” She struggled for words through the haze of battle-fatigue. “Angry.” The young waif finished lamely.

They sometimes say, "the place where I am right now was circled on a map for me"... Unfortunately, I kind of suck at orienteering.

"Okay, I think the bells ring that way." Thought Morionem. Since the kobolds destroyed half of the city, it was hard to remember what was the way to the cathedral. Most of the path was either burnt down or completely destroyed. The kobolds did a good job pillaging, that's for sure, but Morionem was angered by it. Not only he couldn't properly fight the kobolds, but they also demolished most of the city, stealing people in the process. That angered Morionem a lot. But he couldn't fight them with his leg on its current state, could he? No, even because he was using his sword on its hilt as an walking cane. But, well, soon his leg would be healed and he could go on rampage and kill all the evil kobolds he can find. But for now... He found the church!

It was a huge catedral, fully made of stone bricks. There were two main rectangular buildings, connected to a short, large tower with a stained glass dome as the pinnacle, in the shape of a 'L'. A truly beautiful, yet simple, work of architeture. Morionem entered it through the front door. This side of the building usually was the main lobby at the church, and some stairs led to the dorms of the priests and other rooms, Morionem guessed. But today, it was full of injuried people, receive medical care of priests and nuns with magical potions. "Man... This is so sad..."

He walked through all the people, some of which turned to him and stared, confused of the mostly not hurt warrior with bandages on his leg and a hole in his pants. He passed through the huge wooden doors, which were fully open at this time, as the clergy was walking from room to room. The tower was mostly full of people, as it had more free space than the main building. There was an altar, which faced the stone archway at the second building, this one with two floor, this sole one filled with wooden benches, and the other with the bells. The benches had most of the injuried people, while there were less on the floor here than on the lobby. On the corner, there are a few wooden boxes, which were once full of healing potions. "Well, better ask the help of a priest. Hey, mister priest with white hair. Could you help me, please?"

Dolphins are some of the smartest animals, yes, but by human standards… Let's say you should praise the god that forces them to stay handless and underwater.

((Sorry Vic, Kurt is apparently avoiding you XP, anyway private chat me when you get the chance so we can discuss us meeting in this side story thing.))

“Hey, mister priest with white hair. Could you help me, please?" Hector overheard behind him as he limped over towards an empty bench, wanting to rest his weary legs. The question itself wasn’t of any particular interest to the man, though it was odd how the priest the other man seemed to be calling towards swiftly distanced himself from the speaker. The hurt warrior tried to call for him again, but when it was clear the priest was off to do other things, the warrior wandered off to find help elsewhere. To Hector, it seemed pretty clear that this “white haired” priest wanted nothing to do with that other guy, not that it really mattered to him.

With a slump, the large man crashed atop the bench he sought, causing someone on the opposite end of it to nearly fall off of it from the force. “Ahem...uh, sorry.” The swordsman apologized to the scared individual next to him, embarrassment in his voice.

Hearing the crash, the white-haired man glanced up and glanced over towards Hector. Wandering in the direction of the swordsman, he looked him over with a raised eyebrow, then spoke in an obviously discontented tone. “Well, what’s wrong with you?

Hector raised his head to meet the priest who had approached him. A bit to his surprise, it was the one ignoring other people who needed help. “...You pick and choose who you heal around here?” He muttered, somewhat sarcastically.

The other man only snorted in response. “Unfortunately, I’m rather new around here, and that means I’m delegated to the less injured patients for the most part. That and the over-cautious monks don’t want me to ‘exert myself’.” The response came in a tone equally, if not more sarcastic as the white-haired man motioned to the bandages on his head and right hand, and moved with an obvious limp.

Hector scanned over the man’s injuries, but kept anything he was thinking to himself at the moment. “Well, alrighty,” He lifted his left hand brushed up the top of his hair, revealing a pretty bad gash he had received in his fight with the kobolds. “I’ve also got some burn wounds on my shoulders and arms...though I’d prefer to leave the shirt on...if that won’t be a problem.”

The priest frowned for a second, before reaching into his duster with his left hand and removing a roll of cloth. Sticking that under his arm, he also withdrew a vial of water that seemed to shimmer oddly. “Well, I can deal with that, but I hope you can tie bandages. Don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but it’s rather difficult with only one hand.”

“Heh, that’s fine.” The man answered simply, “I guess you couldn’t avoid the Kobolds, then?” He asked, trying to strike a conversation as he worked with the other man to help with the wound on his head.

“No. Managed to get caught right in their path. Just my luck. Here, hold this.” The priest gave a distracted answer as he handed the other man one end of the bandage and began to carefully uncork the bottle with his teeth.

Hector looked around at the other priests in the area as the one attending to him began dabbing the ‘water’ into the bandage. Most if not all of them seemed fine, as far as he could tell. In fact, it wouldn’t be unfair to say this priest was the only one who was as injured as he was. “I wouldn’t call it luck, my friend. Do you have a name?” He answered absent-mindedly, gritting his teeth at the feeling of the bandage wrapping around the wound.

“Just call me Kurt. Things like this aren’t particularly rare for me, unfortunately. It’s how I ended up here, after all.” Muttering to himself for a moment, he withdrew a second vial containing some pasty mixture. “Because so many people apparently never learned that touching flames is bad and because half the city was on fire, the monks already made up some concoction or other for burns. Here, just take this. You shouldn’t have any trouble applying it yourself, right?”

The man gave a simple nod of his head. Thankfully this Kurt said to apply it, cause Hector assumed he’d have to drink it before the man elaborated. “Shouldn’t be a problem.” Raising from his seat with some effort, he took the vial and placed it to his side, and then raised his hand to offer the man a handshake. “I’m Hector, by the way. Thanks for the help, Kurt.”

The other man stood staring at the extended right hand for a moment, then looked back at Hector with an arched eyebrow. “Yes, yes, that’s nice, I’m sure, or it would be if my right hand wasn’t broken in two places.”

“They say...it’s a sign of untrustworthiness to shake with your left...but I guess we don’t have much of an option here.” The man smirked, lowering his right, and extending his left hand instead after realizing his mistake.

Accepting the handshake, though not changing his generally unhappy appearance and mood, Kurt responded with more sarcasm. “‘They’ say a lot of things, and most of them aren’t worth the seconds it takes to listen to them.”

The green-haired swordsman merely gave a bombastic laugh to the man’s comment, before releasing his hand. “Well, perhaps.” He looked around the church once again, his eyes falling upon Anji and her little group. “I suggest going to them next, they could certainly use some help. Looks like they’re young, too.”

“Right, right. Why do more people keep showing up? I need my bloody rest...” So saying, the priest turned and grumpily limped off, muttering to himself all the way.

Hector looked down at his left hand as the man sauntered off, clenching it into a fist, lightly. Pretty strong grip for a shaken and tired newcomer...No one else among them injured... The man thought to himself, his eyes narrowing towards the priest, who disappeared into the crowd in his approach to Anji’s group. Looking back at his left hand, he laughed, “Maybe "They" are worth listening to, once in awhile.”

If you ever need to ask the questions "Am I needed? Should I help them?" The answer is always yes. Always.

Salvantas finished copying the last of the notes the Kobold's had left behind when they fled the village. "Shit, there is enough information on the second floor here to have a research team busy for years, ancient God's temples, places of magical connection, hell even a tomb of a supposed forever living king,"

All very valuable information, the question is what do we do with it?

"Hell we could sell this to any of the other official guilds and live forever in luxury" Salvantas dipped his quill pen back into the ink and leaned back in his chair.

It doesn't sound like you are attracted by that option

"Not really, all the money in the world isn't going to achieve either of our dreams, but I think... Mr. Blank"

Yes Salvantas?

"Remember how years back we came up with a plan that would shift the entire world in our favor, the one that would allow both of us to be at peace?"

You can't possibly be serious, we both agree'd that the plan would be impossible without... oh, that is brilliant, for you at least

"Thanks, the plan that will put the entire city in our hands, we will create a world where no child has to watch his parents die, no criminal will escape because of their title or status"

Operation Paradise Gain

"With this information we begin"

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________THE NEXT DAYA crowd had gathered in front of the city hall to observe the official creation of a new guild. The mayor stepped forward with a grin of his face. He quickly wiped the sweat on his brow with a small handkerchief. "Thank you for gathering today to witness the forming of this grand new guild, to give you more information I present the leader of the new guild, Salvantas Londgium!"

The crowd cheered as the red haired man stepped forward to shake the Mayors hand. He had dressed in a outfit befitting a noble. "I wish to thank you all for coming here today, as some of you may know my parents were quite famous guards, they helped single handily bring crime to a stand still in this city until the day they were murdered in their own home by the very criminals they battled"

Not to mention their fellow guards corrupted by greed

"In honor of their dedication to this city I officially create a new guild, Heroes Unlimited, our job will to be to act as the guards of justice in this city, removing corruption and assisting the guards to the best of our abilities, we stand for honor, and the removal of all of this cities darker elements, to prove our dedication to helping this city I offer two gifts, the first being a book full of information of the second floor of this floating castle we make our lives on, the second" he snapped and a group of men in red and black uniforms came forward pulling three men dressed in rags and chains forward. "These three men and known as the Slaughter Triplets, they killed and maimed in the lower sector of this city murdering hundreds of innocent people always five steps ahead of the City Guards, but in a day me and my men found them and their lair of sin and evil, they will be judged before the courts and found guilty"

The crowd cheered and began to clap as the guild members dragged the three criminals away to the cells where criminals awaited trail. "We are justice, we are the sword that protects the innocent from guilty, the damned from the pure, we are Heroes Unlimited, creating a better world for all people!"

The crowd continued to cheer as Salvantas bowed to them.

By day you act as an uncorrupted guard with our less noticeable faces

By night you do what you and the others need to in order to allow my days to exist

Darren looked out of the window, scanning the city streets for any sign of movement. As expected, people came out of their houses to look at the state of the city. The smell of smoke filled the air and bit by bit the city streets were filled with the whispers of frightened townspeople looking for news about the Kobold attack. It certainly didn’t took long for them to realize the attack was over and the cathedral was set as temporary shelter for every person who found themselves injured because of the Kobolds.

“If only I was braver...” he thought as he walked down the stairs of the inn he had chosen to hid in. He hadn’t been the only one to think about hiding, but at least the others didn’t have any way of defending themselves, unlike he, who just remained there, not moving, standing by the window hopelessly looking at everyone trying to fight or run, trying their best to protect the town or those people who were important for them. Sometimes, his hand would fidget inside the pocket in which he stored his silver knife, the only thing he still had of the days in which he didn’t hold fear inside his heart.

He walked out of the inn without any road or direction to follow, in reality, he didn’t even know why he had chosen to come out, since the battle was over and he didn’t knew anything that would be useful to the people in the cathedral, treating the injured. He didn’t really mind that, though; he just wanted to dispel his mind from the thoughts that invaded his mind. It didn’t took much time before he found himself traversing an empty street. There wasn’t any sound anymore, but the smell of smoke persisted. Darren looked at the severely damaged buildings as he walked through the silent street. “After all that work that took to repair this city... It’s back to square one, I guess”. He looked through the window of one of the buildings, it seemed to be empty, though he could see a very tall bookcase inside. He flinched a bit as the memories of a painful past returned to his mind. But even so, he couldn’t stop staring at the bookcase. Perhaps, he still missed those days in which he and Wendy, her childhood friend, would go exploring other towns, trying to learn about the world. He remembered how they sneaked inside fortresses and houses whenever they needed, not even once being found out... well, except for that one time he didn’t had worked so hard to forget, but in the end couldn’t find the courage to let go. Those were the days in which he didn’t find himself being paralyzed by the fear that he felt in his chest, the days in which he wasn’t ashamed of himself, because he wasn’t a helpless coward... And just as he thought that, he saw a pair of eyes staring at him from the other side of the glass. Darren gasped, his body becoming unresponsive, but the eyes disappeared just as fast as they had appeared, and in the blink of an eye, they were no longer there. “It must have been my imagination...” he thought, as he let out a sigh and went on ahead. Without realizing how he got there, Darren realized he was nearer to the cathedral than he thought. As he approached it, the noise of people shouting to each or other, or yelling in pain as they were healed increased. He didn’t expect so many people to be injured nor that word that cathedral would be a nearby hospital to spread so quickly. Then again, he might have lost track of time as he journeyed through the devastated city streets. He looked over to the entrance of the cathedral in curiosity, there stood a short girl, she probably wasn’t older than 12. A blanket covered her back, cloaking her small figure. She seemed to be calling out to the people around her, but nobody paid any attention to her... and then she saw Darren and came running towards him. As she came nearer, he noticed her face was covered in soot and that one of her arms had been bandaged. “She’s hurt...” thought Darren, instantly frowning from realizing that.

“Mister! Please help me!” she shouted, even though they weren’t that far away from each other so that he wouldn’t be able to hear her talk. Darren snorted at him being called “mister” though, he certainly wasn’t that old... or so he thought. “Mommy...! Mommy is hurt! Everyone inside is helping... but, they’re all busy! I’ll help her with magic... but nobody lends me a healing magic book... Mister! Do you have anything I could use?”

The girl stared at Darren expectantly, waiting for an answer. “Sorry, but I’m not a mage” he finally said. The girl seemed disappointed, after finally finding somebody that would listen to her, just to find out that he couldn’t help at all.

“Oh... sorry to bother you, mister...” she said, lowering her head and turning back to return to the entrance to the cathedral. She seemed like she was about to cry, but she valiantly fought off the the tears that threatened to roll down her cheeks.

“W...Wait!” Darren said without even thinking. “I’ll... I’ll get you a magic book.” he said, making the girl’s face instantly light up. “Just wait here, ok? I’ll try to bring it as soon as I can.” And with that, he sprinted towards the nearest street, leaving the small girl with a smile on her face, cheerfully returning to the inside . “Just what have I gotten myself into again?”

-

The door creaked as Darren opened, that was the first sign that he was about to get into a lot of unexpected trouble, but he had no choice but to carry on. He gritted his teeth as he closed the door behind him, immersing himself into the darkness of the building he entered because, he knew that if he didn’t, the sound of clattering teeth would soon give him away to anybody that might be inside... if there was anybody inside. In truth, he hadn’t thought about going back to the building in which he had seen the weird eyes appear, but he couldn’t think of another place to look for a magic tome, other than this; after all, the inn was too far away and he hadn’t bothered to check the bookcases over there. “At least there’s a bookcase here... or more than one, maybe...”. The air around him felt cold for some reason and he couldn’t really see what he was walking over. He tried his best not to make any noise as he sneaked through the house, but his shaking legs made it difficult; he could no longer tell if he trembled because he was scared or because of the cold air that suddenly filled the room he was in. When he finally reached the bookcase, he could barely hold the books in his hands from the cold. In the darkness, two pair of eyes watched carefully his every movement, his every step. He would carefully take one of the books and then head towards the window so he could read the title, after all, how much good does stealing the wrong book do?

As Darren returned the tenth book he took from the bookcase, he saw yellow eyes watching him from a far. “It was a cat?” Isn’t he cold in here...?” he thought as he looked over to the right, where a black cat stood, gazing at him. He decided to ignore it, he didn’t have the time to deal with a cat, anyway. As he neared the window, the cat too approached him. Darren, realizing he had finally found a book that looked promising decided to head out, but when he tried to move his left foot he couldn’t. He looked at it and found that it was suddenly encased in ice. Darren panicked, nearly dropping the book to the ground... “That’s right! The book!” he thought, as he smashed the ice with the book which was thick enough to enable him to free himself in just a few blows. He cursed, he should have been more careful. He should have realized that the source of the cold could not be natural, and yet he had let himself be surprised by an unknown enemy. He looked for a potential exit, but there were none; was there really no way but to go back all the way and exit from the place he had entered? He wanted to move, but his legs were completely still, he felt as if the air he inhaled wasn’t enough and he would faint anytime soon. “Damn it, move! You’ve got to move!” he thought, trying his hardest not to fall to his knees, he had to think of something and fast... but what? He could hear the cat tapping the window’s glass from behind, probably to escape from the cold air which became harsher every passing second. And then it hit him. He hadn’t thought about the window. He immediately felt like an idiot for not realizing it sooner, but then again, whenever he was frightened he couldn’t exactly think straight. He opened the window as fast as he could, making a ruckus as the window slid open. He jumped out of the building, the black cat doing the same as him before fleeing far away. Darren ran away too, he could still feel the cold air following him like a ghostly presence seeking revenge. He ran as fast as he could, not exactly sure if he ran away in order to complete his mission or to keep himself alive. The fear made him flee, running through the city’s streets, climbing walls when he found himself in a dead end. Whatever was behind him, he wouldn’t want to find out. Eventually, the cold air disappeared and he calmed himself, sitting with his back against a nearby wall as he panted for air, with the book held against his chest. “I should get going soon... somebody’s waiting for me.”

“Took you long enough, mister!” the girl shouted the moment she saw him appear on the other side of the street. She quickly met up with him, smiling from ear to ear, looking at him with joy in her eyes.“I know...” he answered, almost whispering due to being tired “We’re only borrowing it for a while, ok?” he said as he handed her the book, making sure that she could carry the heavy tome by herself, which she did helplessly. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

“Well, I guess I’ll be going for now, I’ll be back when you’re done...” he wanted to say, but was cut off by a flying icicle headed towards them. “Crap!” he jumped to the side, before realizing his mistake, a mistake that he would regret for a long time.The girl fell to the ground, pushed back by the force of the icicle that pierced the book and part of her shoulder. She didn’t even have time to scream. By the time she plummeted against the earth, she was already unconscious.Darren looked in horror as the girl fell, and he too, felt as he was about to fall. His vision blurred, making him lose his sight for a moment. Deep inside, he questioned whether what he just saw was an illusion or if it had really happened. His body felt numb, his mind went blank and he could feel himself be dragged alongside a path he thought he would never walk again...

“Not again!”

A small knife flew in the direction the icicle had come, sticking itself into the arm of a cloaked figure. The mage just laughed as he removed the knife from his limb. “You should know better than to steal in a city full of adventurers...” he said, lifting his arm. The bleeding had stopped almost instantly, he knew healing magic after all. He moved his hand, this time sending ice needles into the air.

“It wasn’t her fault! She didn’t deserve this!”

Darren covered himself with his arms. He could feel the pain of the needles as they came in contact with his skin, but he couldn’t care less about it. He just threw knife after knife at the mage, who just kept laughing at him.

“It burns! Where are the flames coming from? The book! Give me the book!”

Darren’s vision blurred again. He could see the images in his mind as vividly as they were when they happened. He could still hear her shouting at him, sensing the fear in the voice of the one person he thought would never be able to feel such an emotion. He crouched, just in time to dodge another icicle which grazed his shoulder. “Don’t you realize that it’s no use attacking me? I can heal myself if you try to hurt me. You can’t defeat me!”

“W...Wendy!”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to make this a one-hit KO!” he shouted, as he throwed his second to last knife, missing the mage on purpose. The mage laughed, not realizing that Darren had sprinted towards him, with the silver knife in his right hand. By the time, he could react, he wouldn’t be able to dodge. It was over for him.

“I guess you won’t live to see the prey become the predator...”

Darren stood there, hesitating whether or not to flee. Whether or not he should head into the cathedral and have the girl’s and his wounds treated. He didn’t knew if she would survive, he didn’t even know if the girl was still alive, he was too scared to make sure of it. He looked at the silver knife in his hand, he had made sure to clean the blood off of it. “I guess you were my bravery, Wendy. Well... I guess I can’t be scared all the time...” he thought, still shaking in fear. Still he held onto his last thought and carefully carried the girl into the cathedral. He was bleeding too, but he didn’t care that much about it right now. “I just hope they don’t ask too many questions...”.

Why should we do the right thing?-Well... because it's the right thing to do, there's no other good reason.

Am I a bad guy trying to be good, or a good guy trying to convince himself that he's not the bad guy?

Morionem watched as the priest he had asked for swiftly avoided his gaze, instead maneuvering over to a nearby warrior. “Uh... Where is the priest going? Oh, wait! Hey! The green man stole my priest! Not nice! ...What do I do now?” He wandered around searching for another priest. Sure, they were all busy, but he found a nun who could help.

“By the Lord, what happened?” The concerned healer asked, examining his wounds carefully.

“Nothing, I just got burned, then I bandaged myself.” He said as he sit at the wooden bench closest to the altar.

“Oh...is THAT all?” The woman replied sarcastically as she pulled out a few vials from a pouch on her side. With an annoyed expression, she undid the half done bandages around the young man’s burns. Dabbing the cloth with the liquid in the vials, she began to re-apply the bandages, this time more professionally. “Huh...actually the wounds weren’t as bad as I thought they’d be...did you see a healer already?” The nun questioned with a bit of curiosity, “They didn’t finish the job.”

“Meh, I suppose a professional healer could do better, so I didn’t pay much attention to the work Just enough to let me survive, ya know?”

“Oh...I, uh, see.” She muttered, not sure what to make of his comment. “Well, ahem, you’re all patched up now. You shouldn’t have bothered me if you weren’t that hurt...other people could use the help ya know?” She pouted rudely as she gathered her materials back up and wandered off in the direction of other injured.

”What’s up with that nun? It still hurts when I walked, ‘ya know.”

“Ha! She’s a nice one, eh? I guess, just ‘cause they heal doesn’t mean they have to be kind.” A voice called out behind the young man, followed by a heavy pat on the shoulder. A turn of the head would reveal a green haired man; the one who had “stolen” his priest just moments ago when he needed healing. Half his head was bandaged up now, thanks to the priests work on him.

“Hm...? Oh, hey the green man!” Morionem said as he turned to face the warrior. “Yeah, I dunno what’s up with these clergy. I thought they were supposed to be nice.” He stood up and faced the swordsman.

“It’s uh, Hector, actually.” The “green man” corrected; he gave a slight smirk at the odd nickname, before his eyes shifted around the church, the place was packed with much more injured than the taller man assumed there would be. “Well...looks like they do have their work cut out for them. So...judging from your appearance, I reckon you were out in the middle of it too?”

“Uhum. I heard it from a man that the kobolds were attacking the city, so I walked around until I found them.” - He paused for one second - “But they were so tiny!”

“Tiny? Perhaps. Clearly, though, they should not have been underestimated considering the damage.

“Meh, anyone with fire can set fire to stuff.”

“Ha, yes, I suppose anyone with fire can, uh, set things on fire.” The other swordsman scratched the back of his head, grinning like he had just figured something very simple out.

“See? It’s simple! They were small, so they could break into places easily. Other than that, they just had a few weapons and a shaman. Easy enough.”

Hector gave a nod of his head approvingly, “You’re a pretty confident swordsman; it’s nice to see that in warriors around here. I had a bit of a time with them though, I encountered the bulk of them outside the city, I can only imagine how much worse things would have been if any more had gotten past me. ...I’ll have to apologize to the lumberjacks next chance I get; I wasted one of their trees to cut off a group of them from the rest.” The man thought aloud, rubbing his chin instinctively. “How did it go for you, then? Did you fight them off yourself?”

“Yes and no. I was going to, but after I killed one a random guy appeared out of nowhere, with a weird sword. He attacked them as soon as he got in, and then... Hm... In hindsight I think I saw some damage on his hood, or something. Might just have been an old hood, huh? His arm looked hurt, too. Well, anyways, then he threw one at a fountain, and one of the kobolds started running around, like a... Butterfly. Anyways, then the mage started with his spells, I noticed some of the kobolds disappeared, the two left chased the man away and I beat the shaman. But the bastard ran away before I could kill him. He even burnt my leg!”

“Tricky devil, that one. Gave me and Anji the slip as well...” The man thought back on the encounter, what a mess that ended up being, “...hurt her pretty bad too.” Hector’s eyes drifted off for a moment as he thought on what this other warrior had said, mostly about the man who had helped him. Obviously his description was vague, but...the major injury lined up with a certain priest’s. “Ahem,” He cleared his throat, “That man who helped you, you wouldn’t happen to know which of his arms was injured, would you?”

Anji? Who’s that guy? What, what kind of name is Anji? Oh, wait! He made a question! Uh... Hector stared awkwardly, waiting for a response. “No...” Said Morionem. “Wait! Hm... I think it might have been his right arm? I wasn’t really paying attention to it. I mean, I was distracted by how he dealt with the kobolds. He was pure cool! Wait, you ALSO dealt with the kobolds!” Morionem eyes shined.

“Haha,” The man could only laugh at the starry eyes looking upon him now, “So did you my friend, and from the sound of it you gave them quite a challenge!” Hector complemented, giving another pat to the man’s shoulder.

“Oh, thanks!” Morionem said loudly. Too loudly. “Ahem. Thanks. Though I’m not a very good swordsman.”

“Everyone starts somewhere,” The other man encouraged, “Practice, and you’ll get better with time.” Hector thought on the subject for a moment, with the younger swordsman looked at him expectantly. It, in way, kind of left Hector with an obligation to give him an offer. “...Well, we’ll need to prepare if more attacks like this are gonna happen. If you’d like, I would be willing to practice some swordsmanship with you. I’m quite adept at it, as are the other people I work with. I head one of the guilds here; the Severed Claws. If anyone around here can help you improve your skills with the blade, it would be us.”

Morionem eyes shined again, like a puppy. “Thanks! Ohohohoh! Weren’t you the guys who take care of the evil king?”

The Green Haired soldier was taken aback by the sheer amount of enthusiasm, “Uh...yeah, that was us.”

“Cool! I owe you so much.”

Hector merely shook his head, cracking another laugh at this excitable individual. “Right, well, once things have cleared up I’m sure we at the ‘claws will be happy to give you a hand. For now, though, I think I’ll be resting my wounds here. I suggest you do the same...uh,” He began to say, stumbling over a simple fact, “I didn’t quite catch your name?”

“Oh, sorry. My name is Morionem! Nice to meet you.” He went for a handshake. Hector raised an arm of his own and accepted the hand.

There was a pause. “Well, Mor*COUGH*ronny, AHEM, it’s uh, nice to meet you.” Hector coughed over the horrible mispronunciation of the other man’s name, clearing have no idea how to say it. “Good luck to you, my friend.” With that, the man broke the handshake, and with a simple wave walked over towards a place he could rest. Reaching the far end of the church, he eventually came upon the makeshift beds they were laying out for those staying the night. Much to his surprise, before he even sat down upon them, he was approached by the young squire who was a part of his and Ben's guild.

"Sir Hector?" He approached, nervous as always. The man gave a friendly nod to the young boy. "Some of the others told me you would be here, and wanted to check on your status. Are you staying the night, sir?" Another nod. "I see...what should I tell 'sir' Ben?"

Hector thought for a moment, feeling a bit devious. Last time, Ben had awoken him early, so it was only fair to return the favor. Waking Ben early would be futile though, since he craved to be awake as early as possible. No, only the opposite would be effective against him. "Oh you won't need to tell him anything. He was incredibly tired, from what he told me, so just let him sleep in for the day. I'll be back before he wakes up." The man informed, with a snicker in his voice. The boy figured something was up, but was not about to question the head of their guild. Quietly, he scampered back off towards the inn they worked from, happy to be away from the intimidating giant. "Ha! Sleep tight, Ben! Maybe next time you'll let me get some shut eye..."

If you ever need to ask the questions "Am I needed? Should I help them?" The answer is always yes. Always.

Honestly, Tamar figured they’d been doing pretty okay up until the moment when the girl he’d just fought half a dozen Kobolds with passed out.

His first reaction was... okay, the truth was, it was panic. His second reaction was to run through whatever knowledge he had about the effects of magic on the body. He remembered members of his family getting in the same state a couple of times - overusing their abilities to the point where it started drawing on their physical reserves instead. And his family were highly advanced magic users, not just teenage amateurs. That was probably something like what happened here. Simple exhaustion, nothing too much to worry about...

Except of course, they still had to move her. And Anji was having none of it. “I told her, I tell her every bleedin’ time, don’t overdo it, you ain’t a friggin archmage already!” the ramble was clearly Anji’s attempt to cover up her own steadily growing concern. “She ever listen to me?”

“...I guess not.”

“An' where are the damn priests, anyway? They said, ‘go to the cathedral, it’s safe there,’” There was a momentary pause as Anji stopped walking, eyes scrunched in pain. “And I’ve got some weird kid following me, where’d that green-haired guy go?”

Tamar glanced around. He hadn’t actually noticed the other figure, the one who had apparently carried Anji most of the way here, go. “I... I think he went off looking for the same thing we are.”

“Why'd he go in the opposite bleedin' direction, then? Crows, my head...” Anji grumbled. Looking at her, Tamar figured it was sheer doggedness that was even keeping Anji on her feet right now. The place was filled with people in a similar state and various stages of awareness.

“I... maybe you should sit down, or something?” he suggested after a few more seconds.

“Nuh-uh, not until we find a damn priest already.” Anji shook her head determinedly. “Gotta be one of ‘em who isn’t dealing with scraped knees right now.”

“Well, I could go find one,” Tamar suggested. Really asides from the incessant pain in his shoulder and the dim numbness where Eliziya had tried, mostly successfully, to heal his hands, he was fairly sure he was better off than most of the people in the building right now. “I’ll bring them to us, don’t worry.”

Anji gave him a look that could... only be described as suspicious really. Or would have been, if she didn’t look so damn tired. At any other time Tamar suspected he’d have been refused. “Blood and Bones, go.”

“Don’t bother.” A deep, and slightly annoyed voice echoed from right behind the two, and they looked up to find a tall man in a black preist suit and matching duster standing behind them, looking down at them from underneath his wild white hair, which was held back by layers of bandages. “I already went to the trouble of coming over here. If you want to run off, that’s fine by me, but I won’t go looking for you.”

Tamar would’ve jumped, except it had kind of been a long day. Instead he tried to turn around without just letting Eliziya fall. He had to do a double take, though. The guy certainly looked like a Priest, he had the robes and everything, but there was something beaten down about his face that suggested he’d be a lot happier if he weren’t currently having to walk around treating injured townsfolk. “Um... hi.” Tamar started, a little lamely. “Um... could we get some help please? Only we um... fought some Kobolds.”

Shaking his head in annoyance, the priest sighed. “You too? You would think more people would have the sense to get out of the way of a horde of murderous lizards, but apparently not.”

“I was under the impression priests were a bit more helpful.” Anji said grumpily.

“I was under the impression that kids didn’t get into fights with raiding parties.” The priest’s response was instant, and laden with sarcasm. And... well, Kobolds were one thing, but this was an argument Tamar wasn’t sure he wanted to get involved with. He made some half hearted attempt to nudge everyone backwards in the direction of a seat.

Anji turned to glare at the priest, “Considering I found them, I figured I ought to ‘ave lended a hand. Beggin’ your pardon, for savin’ your sorry ass, I won’t be making that mistake twice.”

“Pardon granted.” The priest glared at Anji with his strangely grey eyes. “Perhaps next time you find a mob of fantastic creatures seeking looting and destruction, you will remember what happened today and consider not bringing them home with you.”

“Aye, that I can do. Maybe I’ll be in time to help myself to all the loot left by the people not needing it anymore. After all, I’m just a kid, what could I have possibly done?” Anji said as she leaned Zi onto the chair proffered by Tamar. Standing, she returned the priest’s glare, though the priest was noticeably taller. “Now, are you goin’ ta help, or shall I limp over to a nicer priest with better manners?”

There... probably wasn’t another priest available, now that Tamar looked. There weren’t all that many to begin with, and they were clearly being stretched pretty thin as it was, but he didn’t say this.

The priest's expression shifted to an amused smirk as he made a wide motion toward the rest of the hall with his right arm, hand still hanging limp. “By all means, go right ahead. Good luck on finding one that’s free.”

“Alright then.” Anji said as she started to slowly walk away.

Emphasis on the ‘slowly’. Anji clearly wasn’t in the right shape to be walking away anywhere with her head held high, but damn it if she wasn’t going to try. It was actually kind of admirable in a dumb sort of way. The priest seemed to agree with the dumb part of the sentiment as he watched her depart, still smirking. “Oh come on, we just found this guy, he’s trying to help, isn’t he?” He hesitated when Anji glared at him. “Saints alive, bring back the Kobolds.”

The now very amused man responded before Anji could speak, chuckling to himself. “No, not really.” Rolling his eyes, he glanced down at the unconscious member of the group. “Though I suppose I’m obligated to do so eventually.” Apparently this was his way of signalling that he was willing to give up the conversation if the other was.

Tamar shrugged. He’d kind of run out of energy for this a few hours ago. “Then could you please take a look at her sister for us? I-I don’t think she’ll calm down until somebody has.”

Anji whirled around at this, a smart remark clearly hovering on the tip of her tongue. The priest interrupted anything she might have said, however. “Alright, alright.” Traces of amusement still lingered in his tone. it seemed he was in a better mood than when he had arrived. “While I get to that, you go make miss Burn Victim here sit down before she manages to hurt herself again.” So saying, he began a quick examination of Zi, checking her pulse at her wrist, monitoring her breathing, and glancing around for any major wounds.

Tamar frowned. Was this guy really a priest? He looked the part, but there was something... off about the whole thing. Still he was obviously here to help regardless of what he said, so Tamar figured following Anji wouldn't hurt. He hesitated for only a second. “Um... she’s okay, right? I mean she kept healing me even when I told her not to so I figured she just... wore herself out or something.”

“Well, that explains that. Next time, don’t complain about the healer focusing on you first. Chances are, they already handled everything that’s wrong with them while you weren’t looking. Healing magic works best when used on the self.” Answering in a more serious tone, the priest stood. He intended to leave it at that, but after a moment of thought, he clarified for the boy. “She’s fine, just sleeping. Now go and drag your friend over here before I have to. Better you she yells at than me.” Regaining his previous sarcastic demeanor now that the serious work was done for a moment, the priest made a shooing motion with his hand.

“Yes, sir.” The statement was virtually automatic and Tamar turned around quickly so as not to see the smirk on the Priest’s face. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted Anji and this guy in the same space, but she couldn’t just go wandering off like that, Eliziya wasn’t the only person who needed to see someone right now.

~~~

“Hey! Anji, hold up!” Running had become an obviously bad idea within a matter of steps so Tamar sort of half-limped as fast as he could after the retreating girl. “Where are you going?”

“To find another healer.” The girl said simply, limping away from the priest with a determined glare.

Tamar hesitated, once more mentally wishing for Kobolds. “Is it really that bad? I mean, he seems to be doing a good job...”

“Yeah, doin’ a right... fine job. I’m just so... glad he exists. I hope... he continues with his fine job.” Anji said, pausing every few steps to collect her bearings.

Tamar was glad she wasn’t looking at him. That way she wouldn’t see him rolling his eyes. “Look, he’s helping your sister so... so that’s okay now, you don’t have to run off, just let him help you. You need it.”

“I’m fine, really, just need to take a nap, is all.” Anji stopped, glancing at Tamar with a wan face.

Tamar couldn’t help the tug of sympathy. he considered reaching out and taking her arm, or something like that but thought better of it. He liked having fingers. “Yeah. I suppose we’ve all had a bad day, huh?”

“Yeah, I’d say so. You injured? Somethin’ got your shoulder there...”

The question surprised Tamar enough that he paused before answering. He tried to shrug but ow, bad idea. “Lightning bolt. S’no big deal.” In actual fact it hurt as if somebody had drilled a hole in him, but he couldn’t help thinking about how much worse it could have been. “We got really lucky. I’m not sure how we even... Well, the Kobolds won’t be coming back now, I suppose, so it all worked out.”

“Oi, lemme get a better look.” Anji twisted around and looked at Tamar’s wound. “Oh, it looks nasty! You need to see a doctor!” Looking around, the only priest visible was the one they had just left, who was casually leaning back on one of the benches near Zi, legs crossed and eyes closed boredly.

Tamar opened his mouth to protest that it wasn’t all that nasty --because there’s trying to be tough, and then there’s just being an idiot-- but by this point Anji had done an apparent one-eighty in tone and was dragging him back in the direction of the somewhat snarky priest.

“Oi! Dumbass in the black! Help this idiot before he kills himself.” Reaching the priest, Anji all but shoved the swordsman into the chair next to the albino... guy.

The priest cracked an eye open and arched his eyebrow, regaining his smirk. With no explanation for his expression, and no further movement on his part, he looked Tamar over with his one open eye. A moment later, he spoke, definite amusement in his voice. “Well... he doesn’t appear to be particularly depressed or bleeding, so I’m just going to assume you are giving me a generous time limit out of the goodness of your heart.” Dropping his one good hand into his pocket, he pulled it out a moment later with a vial of herbal paste. Turning to Tamar, he tossed it gently over to the boy (note to self, Tamar: don’t quickly grab stuff with that arm). “Here, just put some of this on those burns. It should start the healing overnight, since none of them are very bad. Consider yourself lucky that the lightning just flashed over your skin. You could have ended up like her.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the other member of the party. Then, turning back to Anji with another smirk, he continued. “Now, if you are done pointing me to all of the people who don’t need my assistance at the moment, I believe there is a charred mark there on your shoulder that indicates you’ve been running into lightning bolts yourself.”

The priest’s expression was serious now. He seemed to be done joking. “And I’m the most colorful person you’ve ever met. Lightning bolts powerful enough can cause nerve and muscle damage, so if you value the use of your arm, you will sit. Down.” His final two words were punctuated for emphasis as his eyes narrowed. That, Tamar thought, was the kind of voice you did not want to argue with, especially when it was owned by somebody going around handing out medicines.

Tamar watched Anji sort of stumble into a seat, mumbling protests, and figured this might be a sensible course of action for everyone involved.

“Thank you. Now, you, kid, come over here.” He motioned to Tamar as he withdrew another roll of bandages. “I hope you know how to tie a bandage, because if not, I’m going to have to teach you, and frankly that will be annoying if I can’t show you.” He raised his injured right hand.

Tamar frowned. “Is it anything like tying up a boat?”

“...Close enough.” The odd priest began to sprinkle the unrolled bandage with what appeared to be water from a vial he had drawn seemingly from nowhere.

Whatever it was Tamar suspected it was probably going to hurt (stuff Doctor’s put on wounds just seemed to do that automatically) and Anji was clearly thinking the same thing. “Oi, I didna sign up for none of your crow-bitten priest stuff. What is that, and why are you tryin’ ta put it on me?” Panic laced through her speech as she began to hyperventilate.

“It’s holy water, obviously.” The priest was smirking again. “Blessed by God? Heals minor wounds? You know? That stuff? As to whether or not it hurts...” He trailed off and began to casually twirl the bottle. “...it doesn’t. It’s water, what do you expect?”

“Well, if the water is as sharp as your comments, a lot of pain.” Anji said in a monotone.

“Oh, don’t worry, Anji, I’m sure that isn’t even remotely possible,” Tamar said as brightly as he could. he only realised the implications after. However, the priest only seemed to think that was funny and went on with his work, handing off the prepared bandages to Tamar for wrapping. It really wasn’t very much like tying up a boat, which Tamar had only done the once anyway, but he managed. (Heck, the alternative was letting the guy he just accidentally insulted at it again.)

Anji didn’t stop glaring at the priest for the duration of the healing process. “Uh, well, what’s your name?” She asked, seeming to cast about for a topic of discussion that wasn’t Kobold centric. “I mean, uh... Do you come here often?” she asked with a smile. Tamar winced for reasons that had nothing to do with his injured shoulder.

“I’m pretty sure that attempt at starting a conversation just physically hurt me. And for your information, I don’t particularly care what you call me. Kurt is fine, but ‘dumbass in black’ also works, as long as you don’t mind paying for my medical services.” Smug smirk still on his face, withdrew a few more vials from his pocket, one more of the paste he had handed Tamar and two vials of holy water. Holding them out to the two, he gave quick instructions. “Give one of these vials of water to the sleeping girl when she gets up. It will help her regain her energy. You take the other and the rest of the bandage roll and finish fixing up all of the rest of your minor wounds. I already explained what this,” he paused and held out the bottle of herbal paste. “is for, but if you forgo-”

And because there was no way the evening could be allowed to end on such an almost peaceful, if awkward, note that was the moment when the huge door to the cathedral burst open, without so much as a knock first.

They sometimes say, "the place where I am right now was circled on a map for me"... Unfortunately, I kind of suck at orienteering.

Darren kicked the door open, “Well, there goes subtlety...” he thought as he entered the cathedral, but there wasn’t anything else he could do, as his arms were occupied carefully holding the injured girl. The place was even more filled with people than Darren had thought, “Were there really so many people in this place? How did they all get hurt, anyway? I hope I can find somebody to heal her quickly, else...” he gritted his teeth one more, not wanting to think about that possibility. He scanned the area quickly in search of a mage or a monk, somebody that could assist her. Everybody seemed to be busy attending the injured, not a single man was without doing anything. Darren hurried further inside, hoping to find somebody... anybody.

Suddenly, a passing, relatively uninjured person who was among the many gawking at the abrupt entrance was shoved to the side, revealing an oddly white haired man in black. “What’s going on here?” The man’s deep voice cut across all of the surprised murmuring as he questioned the newcomer.

“The girl... she’s hurt... She was looking for a magic book to heal her mother and then...” Darren hesitated, he couldn’t really tell him exactly what happened, he didn’t even know him. “...Well, the point is she’s hurt, can you do something about it?”

The priest, for that was what he was, wasn’t even listening to Darren’s response, however. A moment after he had spoken, he had caught sight of the blood and the small girl and suddenly flown into an animated frenzy. “What the hell are you people doing standing around with your mouths hanging open?! Clear a space now! You!” He whirled on a monk nearby. “Get me bandages and the best healer we have!” Spinning back to Darren, he pointed to the space that had opened up to the side. “Put her down there, and hurry! Don’t jostle the wound!”

Darren didn’t think twice about it and followed the man in black’s instructions. Careful not to hurt her anymore, he lowered the girl as slowly as his own wounds allowed him. As he let her lie down on the floor he couldn’t help but think about Wendy’s own dilemma. “Guess that’ll have to wait.” he moved away, letting the monk do his work. He wouldn’t be of any use to him anyway.

The priest dropped to his knees beside the makeshift bed so fast that he skidded across the floor for the last foot or so to the girl’s side. Even as he did so, his left hand drew out a strange vial from the pocket of his long coat, and he tore the cork out in an instant with his teeth. A glance at the wound later, he began shouting to the nearby monks who had begun to bustle around the area. “There’s frost on the wound! Some kind of ice magic. It hasn’t finished melting yet, and it’s slowing the blood flow. Get that healer over here to work with my holy water!” So saying, he poured the entire vial across the injury. Glancing over his shoulder at where Darren stood, he addressed him as well. “What, you think you can just stand around too? Get over here! I need your help!”

Darren snapped from his inner thoughts at the sudden call. “What should I do, then?” he asked, nervous at how severe was the situation. He didn’t think it would take so much work to heal a simple girl and he wondered what else he could do about it.

“Exactly what I tell you! I need a working pair of hands!” The response was snapped back instantly. Glancing up at an approaching monk, the priest continued his chain of orders. “Get me something to clean this wound and someone to help stitch it back together once the healer gets here!”

“I’ll do it if it comes to that!” Darren interrupted, not really sure of where he got the sudden outburst of bravery to say something like that.

The priest merely nodded in response. “Fine. But first, I need you for something else. Now hurry!”

~~~~~

The healing procedure was long. Darren and the monks worked tirelessly, following the priest in black’s orders with precision. He didn’t act like he was injured, even though his injured hand and the bandages around his head spoke otherwise. “Perhaps he had his own share of trouble too?” Darren thought as a second healer came to relieve him. The man in black went away, limping towards the back, perhaps to rest his wounds for a bit. “I didn’t even catch his name...” thought Darren, distracted from his current duty. The second priest quickly scolded him, telling him to continue helping the others.

Finally, the girl rested peacefully on the ground, one the monks was left there to take care of her condition. Darren thought about looking for her parents, but the work and the pain of his wounds were taking their toll on him, so he turned to the priest, thanking him and also telling him to thank the other priest. “You don’t happen to know who he is, do you?”

“Ah, that’s Brother Konrad. He traveled here separately and only recently joined our church, but he was a priest back on the mainland.” he said, before his expression turned sad. “I’m sorry to say he got caught up in the Kobold’s path, and just barely made it out to the church.”

Darren thanked him once again and left to find someplace to rest. Not too far away, he found a corner that wasn’t all that cluttered up. He let himself lie down, tired from all the work. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Not that anybody would mind I guess.” Unfortunately, not too long after he did this, a voice came to disturb him from his rest.

“Hey, you...”

Why should we do the right thing?-Well... because it's the right thing to do, there's no other good reason.

Am I a bad guy trying to be good, or a good guy trying to convince himself that he's not the bad guy?

The first floor of the underground; a damp sewer system filled with vile creatures, horrible traps, and waterfalls that fall into an abyss below. Clearing this floor, and keeping watch over it had become a job of the church… but that was not why this monk was here. Brother Konrad, or Kurt as those annoying guild members called him, thought different… in truth though, he merely helped the executor as an excuse to stay behind in the underground. He had a much different job than what Kurt or most of the other church members they tried to keep ‘out of the loop.’

He finally reached his destination, a room hidden deep away. To the Monk, it seemed that he could only be capable of finding it when those who resided within let him find it. Annoying, but he would deal with it. The room itself was quite large, with bookshelves filled to bursting with books and unusual trinkets and tables piled with lose artifacts, maps of the underground, and piles upon piles of notes. Two figures were seen towards the back; one sitting, one standing. “Luca,” he called out.

“Hello, Aydin.” The one sitting welcomed, without lifting his red haired head from the notes he was looking over. The one standing merely nodded to the monk, a thick cloak hiding any features of the individual to him.

“I got the report you wanted…” The monk commented, slowly approaching the table Luca sat, dropping even more paper at the edge of it, “Everything that was discovered during the Kobold attack is right here.”

The red haired man seemed to perk up excitedly as he snatched the papers up. “Excellent!” He beamed, before coughing to regain his composure, “Ahem, uh, thank you.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for. The missing reports will show up for you eventually in the hands of some Guild, be prepared for a need to ‘investigate’ them.” Luca explained casually as he skimmed through the papers. “… I have another task for you, if you’re up for it.”

Aydin frowned at this, “You are asking quite a lot from the church, Luca.”

“Change is difficult, my friend…” He shook the papers in his hand like a fan at the monk, “You want the church to have full authority over this city, and one pile of paper isn’t going to do that. You know that. It must be a slow process.”

The monk sighed, agreeing with the other man’s sentiment, “What else would you have us do?”

A grin appeared on the red haired swordsman as he grabbed a folded piece of a paper on the table, and slid it over to the monk. Aydin picked it up and slowly began to read its contents. “Two names are on there. They’re from one of the more prominent guilds; I don’t know much about them yet… but I’d like to.” Aydin raised an eyebrow to Luca at this statement. “Bring them to the Underground, discretely if you can. Bring them exactly to the location on the paper, and Asha,” He pointed to the cloaked figure looming near them “Will do the rest. All I need is for you to get them there. Understood?”

“Just what are you planning?”

He shrugged, “It’s a surprise. Understood or not?”

The monk sighed, “Anything to give our church power around here.”

“Wonderful. Bring them there within the next week or so. Don’t worry about the exact time… Asha will be there.” At this, the Monk peered over at the hooded figure, its face hidden by a pure white mask. The man felt eerily uncomfortable just staring at the figure. “She doesn’t like when people stare.” Luca warned, causing the man to avert his eyes. “Just keep listening to me Aydin, and this city will be under your authority before the year is done.” At this, a bright smile appeared on the monks face, excited at the proposition.

“I’ll see to this, Luca, you needn’t worry.” And with that, the man stuffed the note away and made his leave.

Luca and Asha silently watched the man leave, until finally the swordsman turned to his ally. “Well…” He began, placing the notes between them, “Let’s start studying. What we’re looking for is in here somewhere.”

If you ever need to ask the questions "Am I needed? Should I help them?" The answer is always yes. Always.

Quietly, a hooded figure watched from afar as two adventures scrambled out of the underground; apparently surviving their ordeal. It was the same figure Luca had referred to as "Asha" to the monk, prior to the kidnapping of those two very same adventurers. She waited silently until the survivors were gone, before turning back to where the battle between their shadows had taken place. Her body moved like there was no weight to it, barely making a sound at all besides the slight movement of cloth, something that wouldn’t attract the creatures of this damned place…unless she willed it.

Finally she returned to the place of their battle, her masked face scanning over the area. One of the shadows had been completely slain…but the other, she still sensed. When her mask fell upon its location, the shadow reformed into the shape of anji…though this time its eyes were empty, soulless. When Anji had accepted the negative things the shadow had said, it lost any power it had over the girl, but Asha already knew this.

“I am someone…” It muttered, not even noticing the cloaked woman standing above her. “I am someone…” it repeated, this time its gaze turning ever so slightly upward, as if trying to argue it to the woman who stood above her. Before it could repeat the phrase again, however, a spectral like claw extended from Asha’s body, clamping around the shadows face violently, as if to say No, you are NOT. The claw griped the creature and lifted it off the ground, and Asha began to drag it away, back to where Luca waited. With this creature, they would pull all the information Luca wanted about Anji and Fade, whatever that might entail. And with the exit outside the city gates, those two would most certainly end up stirring some trouble.

There was nothing else to do here. So the cloaked woman lowered her head, and left as unnoticed as she had entered.

If you ever need to ask the questions "Am I needed? Should I help them?" The answer is always yes. Always.

Another night, same as almost any other. Salvantas had taken to patrolling around the lower areas of the castle following a noble who had gotten himself bewitched by an attractive looking woman.

Hm. Nobles like to play with those bellow them, I wonder if it gives them some sick pleasure comparing what they have to what others don't.

Salvantas shook off Blanks thought and watched from the shadows as the woman began to lead the noble into the alley. Just as predicted, good thing we have our agent already in place.

Heh

Salvantas pulled out one of his kunai and entered the alley with a smile. Three rather large looking brutes had gathered around the noble and where holding him quite roughly and the woman who had been around his arm a moment ago now had a knife to his chest. "Well well well well what is all this then?" Salvantas smiled. "Certainly doesn't look legal not at all"

"Crap its that freak who runs that new guild, the one that took down the boss" one of the men exclaimed.

"Hold your group idiots!" the woman got behind the noble and put the knife to his neck. "Take one step closer and rich boy here is going to be losing his head understand, now toss that little knife of yours over here and put your hands up in the air"

Salvantas gave the woman and mock bow and put the knife on the ground kicking it past the group. He lifted his arms in the air and let loose a small whistle. Then everything starting going downhill for the criminals.

A blur flew past the thugs and the woman cried out and fell backward a small pool of blood beginning to spread over the ground from a gash on her leg. Salvantas smiled as the blur moved toward him. It was Smoke his loyal wolf puppy companion holding Salvantas kunai in its jaws. The wolf jerked its head upward and let go of the knife sending its handle into the waiting palm of his master.

"Lets do this Smoke!" The small grey wolf turned and landed on Salvantas's boat and he launched Smoke at one of the crooks head with a well placed kick. As soon as contact was made Smoke began to rip into his with claw and fang as it was born to do. The man went down from a combination of shock and pain as the tiny wolf did its job.

Salvantas threw his dagger into the shoulder of one of them, hitting a cluster of pressure points that would disable the entire arm. He followed up by pulling two knives and striking along multiple points of the remaining thugs body sending him into a sort of paralysis that caused him to fall backward like a stone statue pushed over by a strong gust. He rained disabling blows on the body of the thug with one arm and sent him to the ground like his friend (albeit with a few extra broken bones).

The final thug managed to throw Smoke off his head and began to run from the alley. Smoke rolled for a few seconds and ended up next to the woman whose leg he had slashed. He picked up her knife in his jaws and ran forward building up speed until he suddenly jerked his jaw sideways and sent the knife into the mans back causing him to spasm and fall to the ground in a twitching pile of flesh.

Salvantas smiled as he looked over the group of would be robbers and whistled to call Smoke over to him. "That was a risky throw, any more up and you would have killed him, any more down and you would have rendered him an invalid" he looked down at Smoke and Smoke looked up at him. "But you knew that and you hit the target beautifully, all that training paid off" he scratched the ears of his companion and it let out a small bark of joy.

Salvantas pulled a small flare from his coat and dropped it to the ground and it let out red smoke to the sky. It would be a signal for a pick up crew to take these thugs and throw them into jail to await trial. He turned back to check on the noble who had passed out the send the fighting had begun.

Pathetic

"Not everyone has our stomach for battle Blank" he picked up the noble and began his journey to return him to his family. Smoke traveled a few feet behind him alert and ready should he and his master need to battle again.

The sound of a door closing broke the silence that had filled the night. Even though there weren’t many dangers that could arise in the dead of the night, the only people who ever went out at such hours were unruly kids and foolhardy adventurers. The green-haired man left, rushing through the alleys of the city, the clanking of his armor probably waking up several townsfolk. Such a man would surely be described as foolhardy... as for himself, the cloaked figure who stood hidden over the inn’s roof, silent and unmoving, his eyes open wide to asses the situation; he would probably accept being called an unruly kid, even though he wasn’t one anymore.

A moment later, he found himself following the guildmaster through the city streets, the sound of his steps, while still audible, was drowned by the green-haired man’s own. Despite the other man’s armor, he had a tough time catching up to him, having to resort to the sound of footsteps to find the correct way once or twice. Finally, the guildmaster stopped in front of a gate leading to a staircase that went downward. “Ominous...” thought Darren as he spied the leader of the guild, hidden behind a corner. Without warning, two other men appeared, coming from inside the gate, blocking the green-haired man’s path.

Darren stared at the men’s argument, making sure to not make any sound and be found out. That wasn’t his intention. Suddenly, he felt a hand pulling his shoulder back. His heartbeat skipping a beat and instinct kicking in, he thoughtlessly jumped to the side throwing a knife towards the darkness of the night. There was no sound aside from the one made by the dagger hitting the wall and then the ground. He looked around to try and find whoever had grabbed him, but the street was as empty as it should be... “Aside from the unruly scout and the foolhardy swordsman, huh?”, he thought while peeking again. To his surprise, the green-haired man had gone away and only the guards of the gate remained, letting out sighs of relief due to not having to fight.

“Crap.” he whispered, his mind contemplating going back to the inn. He turned, ready to call it quits, but he had to stop. He was caught off guard, the cold blade of a knife barely hovering above his neck. His body tensed, his hand now carefully being moved towards his pocket, trying to reach another knife without being noticed. He could feel the sweat rolling down his forehead, he just hoped he wouldn’t start shaking all of a sudden.

“No need to be scared...” a woman’s voice whispered into his ear. “...I won’t harm you... unlike you” she said with a hint of resentment as she let go of him.

“Come with me.” she said as she dashed away in the opposite direction. Darren hesitated, glancing over to the gate and the guards once more time “I guess it’s no use...” he thought as he left.

---

The cold wind was blowing when the two scouts reached one the city gates. Two small torches had been lit, their light shining weakly, barely illuminating the entrance to the city. People stood over the city wall, scanning the area just outside. “Why are there so many people here?”

“Get up there, you’re on sentry duty” the woman ordered as she removed her hood, revealing her long wavy black hair. She crossed her arms when she saw that Darren simply stood there, staring at her unimpressed. “That’s an order.” she calmly said, ready to leave.

“Why? This is a city of adventurers, there’s no need for something like that, right?.”

“One would think so, Darren.” the woman started, surprising Darren by the sudden mention of his name.

“How did you...?”

“Silence.” the woman’s attitude had changed, her voice sounded bossy and irritated. She frowned. “Yes, this is a city of adventurers, but even so, not everyone is skilled in battle. And besides, there are enough pickpockets and rats around here, a little of discipline won’t do any harm.” She walked up to him, her eyes locked into his own, conveying her now furious gaze. “As for your name, you should probably ask yourself why somebody knows it, don’t you?” A grin appeared on her face as she walked away.

“You still haven’t told me why I have to do this.” Darren replied, ignoring her sudden remark. “Perhaps she knows about that mage I...”

“Consider it me being nice and not telling anyone you wounded me.” she said, not even bothering to look at him. With the light from both torches, he could see a loosely place bandage on her right arm, a hint of red staining the cloth of the bandage.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t confront anyone from behind next time, then” thought Darren, resigning himself to a night of dullness and lack of sleep.

Why should we do the right thing?-Well... because it's the right thing to do, there's no other good reason.

Am I a bad guy trying to be good, or a good guy trying to convince himself that he's not the bad guy?

So it started with Tamar nearly giving a local Blacksmith a heart attack, and the whole day kind of kept getting worse from there.

The sword lay on a stone bench between him and the ‘Smith, who, as the door sign had helpfully informed Tamar, was named Tad. This didn’t seem like a very Blacksmithy sort of name, to be honest. Tamar would have expected something like Blackrock, or Wintersteel or... well, basically anything to do with metal.

His name aside, Tad looked like a blacksmith. Ash streaked face, sweat stained leather tunic, arms mottled by burn scars, but only a few new ones, because no professional blacksmith would get burned as often as when he was an amateur. He had been intimidating before Tamar even approached the counter, and now... Well, now he looked torn between fury and heartbreak. When he spoke, it was as if his words were being forced through a net.

‘What... what in the name of every saint this side of Eternity have you DONE to it?’

The man was staring at the remains of Tamar’s sword with such a ragged expression, you’d think Tamar had presented him with the Kobolds he’d used it against. Which was all a bit of a blur now, to be honest. (Did he really body-ram a Kobold Mage off the edge of a cliff the other night? Really? The fact that he was still here was either proof for or against that memory, and Tamar really wasn’t sure which thought reassured him most). Well anyway, the point was that the Blacksmith looked very upset about the state of the sword Tamar had just placed in front of him, and Tamar was starting to feel a bit guilty about it.

‘Uh... mostly, I stabbed things,’ Tamar mumbled.

The Blacksmith gave him the evil eye. ‘Stabbed! You— Stabbed what exactly? A live lightning wyrm?’

Tamar coughed. ‘Well, i-if you took away the wyrm and left the lightning... I guess. I was sort of distracted at the time, sir, I mean things were catching fire.’

‘...Catching fire.’

‘Just a little bit.’

He debated telling the Blacksmith exactly what happened but most people hadn’t believed him so far. At least they didn’t seem to. Perhaps Anji did, but that was mostly because of her sister, stammering through one sentence after another, tripping over everything everyone else said in her effort to defend him. He actually felt a little guilty about that. Tamar wondered whether she was currently experiencing the same outright disbelief that he was. ‘You? Taking down a Kobold Archmage? Uhuh... and I suppose you’ve seen the one hundredth floor and there are crystal angels up there, huh? A likely story...’

...Then again Eliziya could set things on fire with her brain. That was probably really useful in an argument, right?

Anyway it turned out that the handful of leftover melted gold Tamar claimed after the battle bought a lot more than you might expect, which led to an altogether different problem, because the second Anji got a look at his sword she demanded he see the nearest blacksmith about it because like hell was some kid fighting in her guild with a weapon looking like that.

Which was why Tamar was now here, the Blacksmith was glaring daggers at him, and everyone else in the Forge was suspiciously absorbed in their work. The loud clatter of Tamar’s sword being picked up gingerly and tapped on the stone bench brought him back to reality. Right... he was trying to explain what happened to it, wasn’t he?

‘It was really an accident.’

‘This? An accident?’ the Blacksmith grunted. ‘Boy have you ever even applied a liniment to this thing? Ever?’

‘I... No. I thought liniment was for wood.’

‘What do you think the handle is made of? Cheese? Anyway I wouldn’t take this on the field if you paid me in bloodstone ruby,’ the Blacksmith sniffed. He waved the sword through the air experimentally. It made a noise less like ‘whoosh’ and more like a disgruntled starling in mid flight being hit by a cart. Tamar winced a little. It even sounded broken. ‘And what the hell is it even made of? I don’t think this weapon was ever supposed to see the battlefield!’

Tamar shuffled, noting to himself that this was probably right. ‘Well it wasn’t really a battlefield last night, i-it was more like... Oh, like one of those fights you sometimes get, when everyone’s drank a lot.!’

‘A bar fight?’

‘Right, those things.’ Tamar nodded, then hesitated. ‘Uh, I wasn’t in a bar fight by the way!’

‘Sure, sure.’ The Blacksmith sighed, rubbing his temples. ‘Look, you really want this fixed? You could get a new one for less that it would cost to reforge this... artefact.’ He spoke the word ‘artefact’ the same way most people might say the names of hated relatives.

Tamar shuffled. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got.’

‘Well it looks as if it belongs on somebody’s mantelpiece not in a lightning wyrm’s hide,’ the Blacksmith’s sharp eyes flickered. ‘That what you’ve been doin’ kiddo? Chasing down monsters in the night?’

‘Something like that.’

The Blacksmith turned the sword over, swinging it experimentally a few more times. Several more hypothetical starlings died grizzly deaths. ‘Could use some replacement iron, I suppose.' he said. 'If you’re really dead set on keeping some of it... But you’ll need some good ore. Nothing I have in stock. Could use some ofthat woodland stuff, I guess... Or I could melt down an old weapon but... I hate to do that.’

But Tamar had caught onto one particular sentence which didn't honestly make total sense. ‘Woodland ore? So I could find ore out there? You could use that?’

‘Yeah, well... since I came out here, turns out ores show up in the strangest places.’ The Blacksmith looked thoughtful. ‘It’s like this place operates according to its own rules of reality, and to hell if it makes sense with common mining practise. Still, it keeps us folks in a job.’ He shrugged, as if he’d given up on this train of thought long ago. Most people in the castle had, Tamar noticed.

It was strange... He heard all kinds of stories about just how people got to the Castle, but the general consensus, at least with Eliziya and Anji, was that they came here looking for something, or getting away from something. But not everyone here was an adventurer, right? The Blacksmith wasn’t. Tamar wondered what stories the Blacksmith and his workers had been running from when they ended up at the Floating Castle...

‘So if I could bring you some of that ore, you could fix it?’

The blacksmith snorted. ‘Saints damn it, boy, why don’t ya just bring me a mop and ask me to turn it into a mage’s staff? I’d be a damn sight easier.’

‘Oh... I’m sorry if you can’t then—’

The Blacksmith bristled. ‘Heeey now, when did I say I couldn’t do it? There’s not a branch in this city I couldn’t turn into a lethal weapon, boy. Just not sure it’s really worth your trouble in this instance. Be easier to start a fresh, pick something more your style.’ The blacksmith winced, as if the sight of such a mistreated weapon caused him physical pain. ‘Showy piece or not, you’re supposed to respect these things, ya know. The most fancy weapon in the world can serve well if ya treat ‘er right. You haven’t been treating this right at all.’

Tamar hesitated guiltily. The thing was, he wasn’t sure why he was intent on keeping the sword. It wasn’t like there’s any emotional significance to it, not really. In fact, the shape of it in his mind was attached to things he’d really rather not remember.

Heck, maybe that was why he kept it. And it was the only thing he had left of the Veil. ‘I can find the ore, if you tell me where it is.' He said.

They sometimes say, "the place where I am right now was circled on a map for me"... Unfortunately, I kind of suck at orienteering.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" A young woman sang in a beautiful voice. She smiled over her family. Her husband sat in his chair reading from a book near the fire, her son riding of the back of their dog having the time of his life laughing and playing.

"How I wonder what you are" They were so rarely all together, always apart for business that called them this way and that, so when they were able to be together, they enjoyed it as much as they could.

"Up above the..." a sudden knock at the door ended her song and her husband got up with a groan of displeasure and looked through the peephole giving himself a silent curse.

"Its them" he said ominously. The young woman stood up and picked up their son and took him over to a closet and put him in.

"Stay really quiet okay, if you do then we will make you some chocolate pudding after as a reward okay?" she smiled and hugged him close and gave him a quick kiss on the head before closing the door and going to stand in their living room of their mansion as her husband opened the door letting four of the men into their house.

The first man in wore a heavy coat around him and a silver rapier at his side. He is backed by three other men. Two of them are dressed in cloaks of white and the other red. The final one in was a huge man carrying a massive war hammer on his back. The leading man stepped forward and smiled. "Why hello there, hope I didn't come at a bad time!" he walked past the couple and sat down in the mans chair.

"Anytime is a bad time to see your mug Tenzami, what are you and your thugs doing in my home?" the husband had a rapier in hand and starred down the three henchmen he had brought along with him. They all seemed on edge, they knew that he was considered the greatest swordsmen in the world when it came to the rapier.

"Well seems you and your boys in the guard took down the big man, meaning that someone new has to step up, guess who the hell that someone is going to be?" Tenzami crossed his legs and smiled. "But if I am going to be the big man then I need to step up, like say, kill the man who put away the last boss.

"Like hell you are" the husband began to raise his sword but the man in the white robe shot out an arc of energy out. It hit the sword and ran through the body of the man freezing him in place. "What.. is this... can't...move"

The man laughed and clapped grinning impishly. "Hell yeah still go..." before he could finish his sentence a small cut appeared on his cheek and he let out a curse.

The mother held a number of small needles between her fingers poised to throw. "Get out of my house" she got ready to thrown the needles but the man in the red cloak snapped his fingers and each of the needles melted to useless slag.

"Kreiger ice this bitch!" Tenzami roared putting a hand on his cut. The massive man ran up and grabbed the woman head in his hand and lifted her off her feet slowly crushing it.

"Tenzami you bastard get your thug off my wife!" the father yelled.

Tenzami smiled and waved for his man to let her go. He did so and the woman fell to the ground. "Pick her up, hands behind her back you big lug"

The massive man complied doing as his master asked. "Skrimas get over here"

The man in the white cloak walked over a grin on his face. "Do I get to do 'that' boss?" he rubbed his hands together casting off tiny sparks.

"Yep, do as you please, I want you to watch real close, because this is all your fault dig?" Tenzami snapped and the white robbed man lifted two fingers which crackled with a white energy. He smiled and put his fingers against the woman's forehead and her entire body began to spasm uncontrollably.

"Marisa!" the husband tried to force himself to move but his body was held in place by the Elctromancers evil spell.

Skrimas moved his fingers away and the woman gasped out in pain. "How does that feel?"

She looked the mad mage right in the eye and spit in his face. "How does that?" she grinned as blood began to leak from her eyes and nose and ears.

"Die" the mage hissed and drove one finger to her skull sending a charge that had her body spasm once and then go limp. The giant dropped her in a heap on the ground.

"Marisa!" the father cried.

"Mommy!" the little boy came out of the closet and ran over to her. The giant turned and was about to smash the kid with a well placed punch before his loyal dog jumped in the way and took the blow for his young master. One punch from the brute smashed the dogs body and threw it on top of the crying boy dead.

"Aw shit, no freaking way, you have a kid!" Tenzami stood up and patted the father on the cheek. "Shit and here I thought I would only get the pleasure of killing two of your clan tonight, that is just aces" he pulled out his blade and smiled. "Have fun in hell kid" he raised his blade with a sick grin.

"Wait" the red robbed man said in a calm voice. "Wouldn't it be better to kill Marcus, and leave his child, after all what greater punishment is there then to end a mans life and leave his child defenseless in world without his parents?"

Tenzami thought for a second and then grinned. "And here I thought I was the most messed up of our merry band of murderers, that is a freaking great idea Moramius, shit I wish I had thought of it" he smiled and turned the Marcus's frozen body to see his son. "Last words before I cut you down guard?"

Marcus looked at his son with tears in his eyes. "Stay strong, grow into a great young man, we love you Salvantas, never forget..."

Tanzami made one slash and cut the mans head off before he could finish. "Man that was freaking beautiful, I swear moved me to freaking tears" he wiped his completely dry eyes and threw the sword away. "I like this one better" he took the decapitated mans sword and grinned looking at the sobbing child. "Aw don't worry kid, your parents are sitting in hell burning away watching you, because that is the honest truth of the world, it doesn't matter who you are or what you do in life, everyone burns in the end anyway" he laughed and began to march out the door. "Moramius burn this place to ground, send a message and all that shit"

The crew left and Moramius turned. He lifted a hand and the fireplace sent massive roaring flames out from it consuming the house in an inferno almost instantly. He looked at it for a second and turned to walk away with the others.

A day later when the fire was put out a boy was found close by. The son of the late guard captain Marcus Londgium and his wife Marisa Londgium who was a highly accomplished detective. No living family members could be found and he was sent to an orphanage in the lower class part of the city. He stayed there until one day he disappeared. No one knows what happened to him, and honestly no one really cared. The fire was an accident, the fireplace had gotten out of control and the house burned down.

Only one person knew the actual truth of course, but no one would believe a kid.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Six Years Later"Hey look, it is Salvantas the orphan, freak" a child threw an apple core at Salvantas head as he sat under a tree reading a book he had borrowed from the library. He had a laugh with his friends when the apple it.

He made no response to the apple allowing it to hit him and fall off. They were mad because he was the only one to score well on the last exam due to him actually attempting to learn. He was always mocked by others. If it wasn't because he was smart, it was because he was an orphan, or that he had strange colored hair, or he talked to himself. He couldn't win anyway, so why bother.

"Hey back off!" a young girl glared at the children and they grumbled and left him alone. She pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned him off. "I honestly don't know why you let them do that, I know you can fight, I have seen you do it before"

"What does it matter, they are just big idiots and fighting them would just show how big a freak I am" he sighed and tried to read his book but the girl plucked it away from him. "Hey come on Scarlet I was reading that!"

"Chakara Points and how to effect them" she looked at him. "You read the oddest things, anyway my parents want you to come over to our house for dinner, my mom is making a pork stew, and it has to be better then whatever they feed you at um... your home"

Salvantas looked at the girl and turned his head to hide a blush. Damn it how was it she always managed to do that to him. It wasn't like he was ashamed by it or anything... "Y...Yeah it is" he nodded.

Scarlet smiled. "It is settled then, after school come over, it will be fun" she handed him the book back and ran off to go see her other friends.

He looked at the book and contemplated how he had met this girl. He was walking back to the orphanage one evening when a group of street toughs had decided to hassle her. He had taken them down and escorted her back home. Her father was a well known judge and took a liking to the boy who had saved his daughter, helping him in all ways he could (short of adoption of course, couldn't taint his perfect image). He was the reason Salvantas could enter into the academic world and learn all the things he did. He smiled to himself and went back to reading.Later that NightSalvantas walked through the mansion district in his nicest piece clothing already smelling the warm meal that his friends mother would make. His smile quickly became a frown when he noticed a troop of guards sitting outside his friends house. They were removing the body of his friends father. She was crying and holding her mom. He ran up and looked and noticed something. An image on her fathers forehead that was etched into his mind. Two black points. The same that had been on his mothers forehead.

It was a large mansion. Of course it was, only the best for one of the top members of a massive crime syndicate. It had guards of course, people payed to protect the scum inside. Six in total patrolling the grounds. Each one would be found later with knives in their throats. Thrown in such a way that they wouldn't have made a single sound when they hit.

The boy looked at his handy work with a cold calculating glare. It was dark, no one would see the bodies until day, they would bleed out quickly and be unable to make a sound. Perfect. He entered the house and pulled out another knife. His mother had left some to him in a safe box his parents had kept in case they passed on. Some servants came over to see what was going on.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" he cut them down quickly letting their bodies fall to the ground. They might have been taller then him, but a few quick cuts brought anyone to his level.

"How I wonder what you are" he moved room by room killing everyone in them. Anyone who worked for this monster was guilty by association.

"Up above the world so high" They all deserved to die, just like he did.

"Like a diamond in the sky" the walls dripped with the blood of his kills as he made his way to the second floor.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" he found the man, enjoy a bottle of wine by himself, celebrating his kill.

"How I wonder what you are" he didn't see it coming until it was too late. His arms pinned to the chair with long knives and his feet quickly got the same treatment to the floor.

"How I wonder what... you...are" the next day the mans entire house would be found as the scene of a massacre. The lord of the houses body would be found skinned and then burned. His blood was used like ink on the wall. "Three left"

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________Many years later"So you are traveling to the Floating Castle eh?" the balloon captain smiled as he let the balloon rise higher. "I hear it is quiet dangerous, what brings you here?"

"Oh, just searching for something, figure this will be the best place to find it" Salvantas smiled and looked at the massive construct. "People live here huh?"

"Oh yes, I can only take you to where the entry way to the city is, any higher and the air would be a bit hard to breath if you understand my meaning. I do hope you find what you are looking for."

"Thank you" Salvantas smiled.

We Will

Last edited by Lordxana0 on Thu Apr 25, 2013 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

The wave of nostalgia hit Ben hard as she knocked on the smithy door, her hair tied back to look short as a man's and dressed in simple commoner clothes. True, this Tad was nothing like Ian, and this smith was an indoor shop, rather than a public market stall, and of course Ben herself had changed so much in the past seven or so years. Still, the similarity between the two situations were not lost on her.

She swallowed the memories back as she put on a smile for the burly man, and asked, "I was wondering if you could use a hand around the forge."

The man's mouth twisted into a bit of a frown as he looked Ben up and down. Truth be told, she looked a good deal less muscled disguised as a man than she would have been if she had made it plainer that she was a woman, but old habits die hard. "Much as I appreciate an eager lad, coin's tight enough hereabouts without me takin' on hired help. P'raps you could try--"

"I'm not looking for pay," Ben said quickly, cursing herself for not making that clearer from the start. "Just for the work." She smiled wryly. "I need something to keep me busy."

"You have any experience with smithing?" the man asked warily. "Too often I've seen fresh-faced boys like yerself, never seen the inside of a forge afore the day they come to me."

"I've worked as, ah, a forge-hand before, for a few years," Ben told him. She debated with herself as to whether she should give more information. This place was pretty far afield, after all; how likely was it that he knew her friend? On the other hand, she remembered how King Nicholas had whistled with appreciation when he heard that her parents were commissioning Ian to make Kevin a sword as a wedding present. Still, 'Smith' was hardly an uncommon name-- perhaps she should risk using his newer title...

"I've been an on-and-off assistant to Ian of Valharbour," she said, the desire to hear her brother-in-law praised winning out over her closed-mouth tendencies.

She was rewarded when Tad's eyebrows shot up. "Him? Then I'm sure you know what you're about. Come in, lad, come in! Sure I can use the help."

He had ushered her inside and set her to work managing the bellows before he looked up from the sword he was pounding out to ask her name.

"Ben," she responded, feeling calmer already from the steady pace of the forge.

This probably would have been the sensible choice in the first place, rather than running off Underground, she told herself ruefully.

Salvantas smiled and hummed to himself as he walked around the lower sections of the city the people had designated for workers and people who could only contribute physical labor. It pissed him off that the guards couldn't be bothered too take care of this area. It wasn't their leaders fault. He had met her on official grounds when the city had called them together to address numerous problems with crime and other matters. They rattled off facts and figures and made promises and left without ever getting to know each other. Eh it didn't make a difference in the long run.

We are being tailed. Blank whispered in his head.

What are you talking about, I would have... guh! a sudden blow from his side launched Salvantas into an abandoned alley sending him crashing down on a number of weather worn wooden crates. "Son of a..." he stopped talking when he noticed the blade to his throat. Made of a black metal of some sort the sword seemed to darken everything around it. The thin lines of gold that spiraled around the rapiers blade seemed to glow in a almost ironic way, a thin glimmer of hope surrounded by overwhelming darkness. He knew that blade anywhere, and he knew its wielder... more so.

"Lookie lookie what we have here boys, the guild leader of Heroes Unlimited and the son of the former hero of the kings guard Salvantas something something" Tenzami smiled with a wolf-like grin and laughed. Backing him where the same two men from that night. The large hulking beast known as Kreiger and the demonic fire mage Moramius both staying behind their master waiting.

"You bastard" Salvantas cursed at him as much as himself. Smoke had been tired so he had been left at home to sleep. He wasn't paying enough attention and had been slammed into a freaking alley and now his parents murderers were standing above him ready to kill. Even in the blind rage he was feeling now he wasn't going to kill himself to make a point.

"Bastard I might be sunny boy but idiot I am not, you weren't teleported here with the rest of us wankers so that means that you followed us here, meaning you came looking for me and my crew" he grinned. "Don't bother answering, I already know the answer I know the answer to so frickin much" he grinned and moved back sheathing the blade. It was placed between two other sheaths on his hip. The two swords that flanked the rapier looked just as deadly and threatening as his fathers.

"What are you talking about you murderous freak" Salvantas hissed. He gave a quick glace to the fire mage. One wrong step and he would be ash before he could react. He was way out of his league right now. He didn't know what had happened between now and those many years ago but the three in front of him were much different then before. They had an aura of... evil would be the best word for it. They seemed driven by something, and whatever that something was it made them stronger.

"Listen I know all about your big 'plan' and I have to say it works perfectly with our desires" Tenzami smiled in his evil way and gave him a bow. "To which you should know I will be keeping a low profile and sending some of my agents to you like lambs to a slaughter, I will be assisting you from the blackest shadows, making a few disasters spreading a little darkness for you to stamp out, raise some confidence up in this bitch"

Salvantas glared at him doing his best to kill all three of these murderers to stare them to death. "Why, why would you do that you monster"

Tenzami smirked. "Cause deep down I am a nice guy doing his best with a new chance in life?"

"Bullshit!" Salvantas yelled.

"Yeah true, I am doing it because your goals assist mine, and because I want you to know, that everything you do to set up this new and peaceful world will be assisted by me, I don't want you to sleep at night knowing I am here and making your plans run smooth and there is not a thing in the freaking world you can do about it, understand pumpkin?" Tenzami grinned his eyes glowing madly in the dark. "I want to screw with you, it is the ultimate pleasure in my black existence" he snapped. "We are leaving now boys, exit stage left as the actors say"

The mage lifted his hand and a wall of black flame surrounded the three murderers and when it lowered all of them where gone leaving no trace they had been there at all.

The dust-filled room had remained the same after that night. Nothing seemed to have changed inside that building: the placement of the books, the uncanny atmosphere, the cold air... it was as if time itself had frozen inside. Darren ventured inside, just as he had done a few weeks ago, this time, however, he wasn’t looking for magic tomes, but rather an elusive creature that had made of those dark rooms its home. The gentle light of setting sun seeped through the windows, but even so, the awkward placement of the bookshelves and other sorts of furniture prevented the light from clearing the shadows inside the room.

Two yellow eyes carefully followed his every movement, the creature stood still as Darren walked around the room, probably contemplating the best moment to act. It patiently waited for Darren to distract himself with one of the books on the shelves before prancing towards him in an attempt to catch the intruder. Putting the book away in a rush, Darren reacted just in time to duck, dodging the cat’s assault and side stepping towards the window in order to get a clearer look of the creature.

Both Darren and the cat remained unmoving for a moment, gazing at each other, each one ready to make a movement. The cat jumped towards him, Darren simply catched it in midair, seemingly frustrated at the cat’s constant fighting. The cat struggled, scratching desperately for its freedom, clawing Darren’s face slightly. “Be still for a second, will you?” he whispered before he set the cat on the floor, who fled to a corner, defeated. He searched for a while in a small he was carrying, extracting a smaller satchel from it. He slowly placed the contents of the satchel on the floor in front of the cat, its big yellow eyes still staring at him in caution. Darren backed away slowly, trying not to alarm the feline. “It’s leftover food from yesterday...” he said, questioning himself as to why he had to explain himself to a cat of all things.

“Sorry about that guy...” he said as he made his way to the exit. The cat just stood there, looking at the food, dubitating.

As Darren exited the building, he heard a familiar voice speaking to him: “The perpetrator always comes back to the scene of the crime, huh?” The soldier spoke in a mocking tone. Darren turned to face him, unimpressed.

“Well... this isn’t the crime scene. Not that it matters, since you guys only appear when you need something.” Darren said impatiently, he didn’t like dealing with the members of the City Guard, especially when they seemed to know things that nobody else did and practically popped out of nowhere. “So... what is it?”

“Just came here to make a deal with you.” the soldier replied. ”This doesn’t look good...” Darren thought as those words were said. A deal? What sort of deal could the City Guard could make with him?

“W...What?” Darren replied after a while, trying to stay as calm as possible.

“You’ll be helping us full time from now on.” the soldier declared slowly as if he had trouble coming to terms with the idea. “Your performance hasn’t been what we had expected.”

“What?! No, I’m not joining you guys. Why would I?”

“You murdered a mage. You hurt a fellow member, even if that was accidental. Finally, you gave explosives to goblins, which might or might not cause a conflict in the future. Seems like there are quite enough reasons to warrant us keeping an eye on you.”

Darren remained silent and motionless, feeling the air inside his lungs slowly escape from them. He couldn’t deny he had done all those things, but he felt angry that his own actions would be used against him. Hadn’t he been doing what he thought was right? And that scout he had seen the other night, she had said that she wouldn’t tell anybody. ”Dammit...” Darren felt helpless.

“Anyway, if you don’t accept you’re going to have to come with me. We can’t let somebody like you be roaming these streets.” the soldier finally said, crossing his arms, a serious look on his face.

“... Fine.” Darren simply said.

“We’ll be waiting by the city’s gates tomorrow morning. You better be there.” The soldier started walking away. He turned around one last time, his expression still stern and serious. “By the way, my name is Nestor. I’m not really fond of you, but I guess I’ll be counting on you.”

”I’m not fond of you either” Darren thought as the soldier went away, somehow, he found himself to be gripping Wendy’s silver knife. He took his hand out of the pocket, realizing it was bleeding a bit. ”Just what I needed...”. Darren sighed. He looked to the side to see a black spot appear on the street, it moved towards him slowly, looking at him with yellow doubtful eyes.

Luca Side Story 2: (with slight collaboration from Pixel.)_____________________________________________________Timeline Placement: 1 day following the quest Flame War._____________________________________________________

City guards around the central building saluted with respect as Legias walked the halls of the building. Of the places in the city, this building had been the most intact when the found the city for the first time and its central position in the city made it very convenient as the guards main home. Here, information flowed of the events happening in the castle and was the key place for forming plans and enforcing laws, as well as training recruits. Of course, balancing these things was not easy for Legias alone, she had her advisors and officers who were much better suited for handling the fine details. After all, there was plenty going on this unusual place.

It had been a day since Julius’s fight with the cultists, but already she walked in hand with a full report written by the warrior’s own hands. “He’s more prompt than my own soldiers…” She mused with slight annoyed groan as she turned another corner, “Guess old habits from the guard don’t go away.” Entering one of the offices on the higher floor of the building, she finally reached her destination.

A red haired man sat a desk ahead of her, signing some paper work diligently before he noticed her presence and placed the pen on the table, standing up straight, he saluted the female knight. “Captain.” He was dressed in an officer’s attire, blue and white in coloration which clashed with his crimson head. Quietly, he eyed the stack of papers in Legias’s hands.

“Luca.” She nodded her head to put the man at ease, “Here.” The report switched hands between the two while the woman explained, “It’s Julius’s report on cultist mission. I’ve read it already and there is some…unsettling things in it. I want you to get all the information you can out of this, understood? I feel like perhaps this may not be an isolated incident.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course. I shall do so immediately.” He politely placed the papers atop the original work he had been doing before returning his attention to the captain. “About this Julius…I heard we called off the watch that had been placed over him.” Legias merely stared at the officer, waiting for him to get to the point. “Uh,” He coughed out uncomfortably, “…is that wise?”

“He has cooperated with everything I’ve asked of him so far.” The captain admitted, crossing her arms. “And his work with the cultist may have saved more lives than if we had just kicked the door down.”

“Perhaps.” The man sighed, “I still feel like his presence in these guilds could be…disruptive.”

“Get to the point, Luca.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He returned to attention, before continuing, “It’s just, our handle over the guilds and the church is…tenuous, at best. The citizens have taken quite a fancy to these adventuring types. But their renegade antics have done its share of damage as well. Let’s not forget all this business with the explosives.”

“But you see my point then. Julius may have done good work in this instance, but we need to monitor these guilds more closely lest they do something truly irreversible and dangerous to the people.”

“You’ve been quite adamant about this.”

“It’s hard to ignore.” The man’s eyes lowered, thinking on the actions the guilds have taken during these early months. “I heard a group of them in the last week ignored church orders and charged right into the underground. We could have had an army of the dead on our doorstep had those monks not been sent down to clean up their mess. Even with our own guards protecting its entrance now, who’s to say they’ll be more willing to listen to them over the church?” A low sigh escaped the man once more, “I just worry about our control over this city.”

“I understand your worry…” She commented, “But, if we’re gonna work with these guilds to secure the higher floors and protect our people we’ll need to show a common trust between us. It’s true…it’s a bit of a risk letting Julius off our leash; even I’m not sure how trustworthy he is. His actions have warranted a chance, though, at least. A sign of good will between the Guilds and the Guards. It might make laws we present in the future go over well if these adventurers back them as well.”

“A lot of good if they won’t listen…” He muttered under his breath, garnering a looking from his superior. “Sorry… I’ll trust in your judgment.”

“Good.” She answered coldly. With that, she turned and left the office behind. Luca was… an interesting case. Not only was he one of the first to volunteer for a functioning guard in this city, he was one of the original people who encouraged Legias to form it in the first place. To Legias, he seemed like a thinker where forming law here was more important than any other system around here. Luca wanted the guards in complete control. She did not blame his thinking, but as he said the relationships with them were rocky, and such control would surely be reacted to negatively. The situation needed to be handled delicately.

Luca lowered himself back down upon his seat, his gold eyes scanning over the first few pages of the report. Slowly, a vicious grin crawled across his face. “This is too good to be true for this report to fall right on my lap! Sometimes the best way to get what you want is to do nothing at all…”

~~~

Crickets chirped in the darkness of night as two figures made their way to the center of the temple that Julius and Pan had been not so long ago. It was empty, picked clean by the guards save for one thing. Towards the back of the room still laid the remains of the enormous Minotaur. Out of the shadows, Luca and Asha stood above its charred body.

The swordsman tilted his head towards the masked mage. “Well?” He asked, expectedly.

Quietly, the cloaked woman kneeled before the monsters body. With a spark from her mask, an arm of pure energy seemed to form the ether itself, the same arm that had carried Anji’s shadow back to the two of them. The arm floated from Asha’s body, aimed over the creature’s chest. As it approached the monsters body, a red aura of heat and magic seemed to permeate from its body, react to the arms magical properties. Turning her cloaked head back to Luca, she nodded, indicated this was indeed the same magic that the Kobold had been using. It was obvious to her, however, that this was far more powerful.

Luca knelt next to her now, examining the magic himself. “Can you,” He paused, turning his gaze to the hidden gaze of his ally, “learn it?” The two remained silent, Asha herself seeming to hesitate.

“Asha,” He called for attention, his voice anxious and even desperate sounding “This is it, this is the answer for what we’ve been looking for! With this everything we’ve wanted can happen; you know this.” He reasoned, grabbing hold of her shoulders.

The cloaked woman kept her head lowered, and as if suddenly realizing something, the man released his hold over her. “No… Not everything,” He corrected, “…I’m still working on that one; sorry.” He reminded himself with a sigh. “Please, though. Can. You. Learn it?” To this, Asha finally nodded a yes to the man. “Then what do you need to do so?”

Minutes past, and eventually the two disappeared from the area as quietly as they had arrived as if nothing had been disturbed. But in their hands they held the horns of the beast and with them a chance to learn the secrets of its magic.

If you ever need to ask the questions "Am I needed? Should I help them?" The answer is always yes. Always.

The damage done by the earthquake was, thankfully, not as extensive as it could have been. The majority of the second floor had split cleanly, and the entire floor was already uninhabited for the most part. The injured had been safely moved to the cathedral on the more stable lower level, the monks and mages patching up the ones they could heal, and holding vigil for the ones they couldn’t. All told, only about twenty of the castle-dwellers were dead or incapacitated.

All in all, thought Anji, surveying the wreckage, could be worse.

Something caught the corner of her eye, and she turned. Hunter was leaning wearily against a nearby tree. The effort of aiding the evacuees, along with the nearly sleepless night previous, had evidently drained her.

She saw Anji approaching and gave a wan smile. "Have you ever gotten the feeling that you've made things a whole lot worse for everyone?"

“I think I exist in there.” Anji laughed, then sitting next to the other scout, asked, “You all right? Need to see a monk or mage for healing?”

"I'll be fine, thank you." Hunter then chuckled. "It's funny, but with all the commotion I don't think I ever got your name."

“Torvantine. Guess I sort of got distracted." She held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Hunter.”

There was a long pause, then Anji fell over laughing. “Driving... hahaha... Rain? Are.... hah... Are you serious???” Seeing Hunter’s puzzlement, she quickly sobered, then turned to face the scout. “My name is Anjali Torvantine, leader of the guild Storm and Drive, at your service.”

Hunter was clearly unused to such formality, but she gave a mock bow nonetheless. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Torvantine."

“Now that all the formalities are out of the way, I think you are an amazing archer. I wish I had time to pick it up." Anji grinned.

Hunter returned the smile. "You're very good with your knives yourself. I don't think I've seen anything like them before."

“These old things? I stole them from a swordsmith back home. They are rather nice though.” Anji said wistfully, tossing a knife into the air. “Also, sorry for being so short with you earlier, I’m trying to get better about giving orders... I think I have a ways to go.”

"It's okay." Hunter's eyes lost focus. "We needed a leader out there. You did a good job."

Standing, Anji held out her hand. “I could use an archer like you in Storm and Drive. If you’re available, that is.”

“Nice working with you, Hunter. If you ever need any help, just call. Storm and Drive will show. Least I can do,” Anji said. They shook hands.

"Thank you again. And please, call me Jenny."

“You seem more like a hunter anyway. It fits. Anyway, Hunter, I figure we ought to speak to Legias about this whole ordeal. I’ll need you to come along, to give your side of the story, if you feel up to it, that is.” Anji said.

Damn I really need a job.(This takes place after the quest Rampaging beast)

Rent. Why did it have to be rent?Marcus had managed pretty well financially in his time at the castle. Between fairly lucrative rewards from the cow and monster incidents and several odd jobs about the town. However in the long run it wasn’t going to be enough. So Marcus was out looking for a job in town. Lets see what we have here: Wrangler? No thanks I've had enough cows, Clockmaker? I don't have talent for that, hm...Guard opening....at the entrance to the underground outside of town....Yea, no thanks I like my organs on the inside. Oh hey whats this? Apothecary assistant. Well its been awhile but I think I can dredge up what he taught me.

Having decided on a course of action Marcus walked through town to find the apothecary. Where is this place? Marcus then found the shop. It was a modest place that didn’t seem to have very many customers. Marcus went into the store and walked up to the man behind the counter

“Excuse me sir are you the owner?”“I am, name is Elric.”“I saw the request for some help here. I kind of need the money.”“Thats nice but do you have any skills that would actually contribute?”“My father was a doctor in a small village. He taught me a lot about herbs and remedies before I left.”

“Lets test that.” Elric responded. He then ran Marcus through a very basic quiz about herbs. It was absolutely no challenge. Its been years since I've used this stuff but its like I just learned it yesterday. I never did give you enough credit, Dad.

“Well Marcus I think its safe to say your hired.” Elric said. “Now your first job is to go out and promote the store I don't get nearly enough business.”

Somehow I'm not surprised. Marcus just smiled and said. “Whatever you say boss.”

Anji was walking glumly through the halls of the inn, using her newly gifted stick to push open the door to fade’s...uh... Julius’ room. Zi had made him promise not to leave the room, before disappearing with Tamar. This left a very bored Anji, because there was nothing except a guild-leader’s meeting later that evening, and Anji was dead set against going.

“That would be Anji... Right?” Julius asked without opening his eyes, just before sitting up and looking at her from his bed and offering a weary, but sincere, smile.

“That would be right, I think.” Anji said, pausing for a moment to find a chair, then continuing in a teasing tone, “You feeling better? Bit of an arsehole move there, going off and attacking a cow-man without inviting your guild-leader.”

“Legias is after me, well... Was, anyway.” He said. “I’m sorry, but... It’s not something I can use the guild seal to solve... If I did and it went wrong...” He stopped talking before bringing up his memories once again. “But, yes, I’m feeling better now. What about you?”

“Legias will be at the meeting tonight. I can speak to her.” Anji mumbled.

“You could. But it wouldn’t change anything. It would just be one more thing on your shoulders.”

“I’m the guild-leader, it’s sort of my job to make sure some crow-bitten old hag doesn’t use you as live bait.” Anji said, smirking.

“I see... Well... Do you know why kings have guards?”

Anji didn’t reply, and merely stared at the knight with a look of disdain.

“I’m serious... But if you don’t want to reply, I can work with that.” He let out an amused laugh.

“They guard the king from people like me.”

“In part, but the question is why. Why does the king even need an escort?”

“To make himself look more important and kingly.” Anji said blandly.

“I see.” He pause to think before continuing with his explanation. “But... While it appears that way, it’s not the case. The fact that they guard the king from any form of attack is also a side effect. And some are even incapable of protecting themselves, so that’s a reason as well... But a good king already has the loyalty of his kingdom, of his people. A good king doesn’t need to look powerful, because he has the power of his followers. In front of an army, or in the face of a whole nation, two or three or six are nothing. Twenty men can’t challenge the people, two hundred can’t either. So it’s not about power. Either the king has that kind of power in his people’s loyalty, or he’s powerless, no matter how many swords and spears he can have around him.”

“A streetlord has to be strong. They are the leader, not the follower. To allow a... subordinate...” she paused to ensure that was the correct word before continuing, “..to be forced to move against not only his will, but the will of the leader, that is weakness, and weakness means death.”

“If you’re alone, yes. But see, a king has other concerns. The reason he needs someone to watch for his life is because to him, to a good king, said life is the least important of all things. A good king would die before letting the blood of a citizen fall to ground. His work is to know and make sure everything works, that there is peace, that there is food, that his people are happy. Dammed be his own self. But, to... Us. Guards, such as I was once... That king, the man who works to mediate the interests of all, to try and make life worthwhile for his followers... To us, he is invaluable. He needs guards because his concerns are not about his own well being. And the guards stand as shields to him because they consider him worthy of such protection. Both for the king’s sake and for the sake of the people that he protects... It doesn’t always works, to this day I’ve never met a single ‘noble’ that is truly deserving of the title, king or otherwise, there are no good kings. But some make an effort to stay close to that ideal, and those are the ones I’d rather offer my loyalty to. To the king who makes an effort to make things better, rather than the one who seeks only personal fortune.”

“Staying true to a flawed ideal simply because you like to think it’s correct seems rather stupid. A flawed king that wastes his time on other’s money, without giving dues to those who follow him, that king needs to be destroyed, and a better person should stand in.” Anji said, standing, and walking over to the window.

“But isn’t that what already happens?”

“At the cost of more lives. Where I used to live, streetlords fought streetlords. If you didn’t like the leader you had, you had free reign to challenge him, and him alone. Your way involves more senseless dying, for a man you don’t even like, or want to see lead a nation, much less a beggar gang.” Anji turned to face the knight, eyes stormy.

“If... If your streetlord died... Am I correct in assuming that you’d be forced to bow to another? To struggle to be accepted somewhere else?”

“Life is a struggle. Better to have someone feed you than to fight with the dogs for scraps. If you have an issue with your leader, fight him or leave. A king can hide behind legions of guards, while the only thing standing between you and your streetlord is a blade.”

“Imagine that without a few dozen people, but with hundreds of thousands. If you leave, you have to fight the dogs. If the streetlord dies, a hundred have to figure out what to do... I... Actually, I think you understand what I’m trying to say. If a leader falls, his followers suffer. A hundred under a streedlord or a hundred thousand under a king... It’s just easier to reach the one who has less followers. But, what I really want to tell you, is that a leader has duties that are not ‘go out there and fight in place of his followers.’”

Narrowing her eyes, Anji stared at Julius for a long moment. “A king’s duty is to his subordinates, yet the king must not step up for his subordinates? You knights confuse me, always contradicting yourself.”

Julius started laughing. “I guess you’re right. Knights are a confusing bunch... Perhaps I should just drop the philosophical metaphor and just talk about us and Legias?”

“Oh, no. Continue running in circles. It’s entertaining to see you try to keep up.”

Subduing his laugh to continue, Julius decided to be more straightforward. “In the way you can, you already helped me with Legias, even if you don’t think you did. I’m the member of a guild, that dampens her ability to act in whatever manner she wishes. And her suspicion of me is justified, I suppose. The Lords made sure that my name and the charges against me were very widespread, the more overblown and incriminating the better. For someone who only knows me by those rumors, she made the safest choice. Better apologize to me if she’s wrong, than to bury a dozen of victims that I could leave in my wake if she’s right, I guess.”

“I don’t care for it. She makes me look like an... ineffective... That’s the correct word I suppose... an ineffective leader. Worse, because of her, you are stuck in a room all day. You must be going mad.” Anji returned to her seat, and began using the stick to poke a beetle that had found its way in.

“Then you’ll want to talk to her... But... She’s a knight too, so expect it to be confusing. I don’t think that she looks down on you as much as you believe, if she had no respect for you as you think, she wouldn’t have hesitated when I left her that letter. I’m basically a traitor who deserves no mercy. If she didn’t come here to execute me for leaving the prison before she could conduct her interview, that’s because she thought it better not to provoke Storm and Drive.”

Anji was silent for a long time, lost in thought. Glancing up, she saw that the knight had finally surrendered to sleep. Well, I guess the lesson’s over for today. Standing, Anji reached for the door handle.

“One thing I’ll agree with unconditionally. I am going slightly mad staying here and doing nothing.” Julius said without warning. “So... That staff you’re waving around... Do you know how to use it?”

Anji went ramrod straight for a moment, then recovered. A knife stood quivering a few inches away from Julius’ head. For his part, Julius seemed rather cool about sharp pointy things being thrown at him, and simply tossed the knife back. “It’s a stick.. see?” Anji held up the short tree thing for inspection, “Apparently the villagers thought that was all I was due for payment.”

“That’s actually a short martial staff. It’s an interesting weapon, you can even parry swords with it.” He smiled. “I’m guessing you don’t really know how to fight with staffs then... I could show you the basics, if you want.”

Julius picked the weapon with his free right hand and stood up. “Well, with this cast it’s not like I’ll be able to show much today, but basically...” He started explaining the fundamentals of staff use to the guild leader, real training sessions would have to wait a couple of days until he was free to use his left arm again, but that way she could get used to wielding it before they tried a sparring match.